THE FOXGLOVE. 245 



And stood of all dismantled, save the last 

 Left at the tapering ladder's top, that seem'd 

 To bend, as doth a slender blade of grass 

 Tipped with a rain-drop ; " 



while Coleridge, with the fresh spirit of a child, 

 dips his pencil in the hue of nature, and sketches 

 lightly, the following exquisite word-picture : 



"The foxglove tall 



Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust, 

 Or when it bends beneath the upspringing lark, 

 Or mountain-finch alighting." 



This is a picture which one of our living painters, 

 in his less conventional days, before he drew prim- 

 roses in the green tints which they assume on being 

 dried between sheets of blotting paper, or clothed 

 his broken banks with supernatural lichens, or soli- 

 tary and rootless violet-leaves, might have delineated ; 

 but the united genius and fidelity of a Robins alone 

 could have done it justice. 



