POPPY. 



it was the custom to offer Poppies to the dead, especially to 

 those whose manes they designed to appease. 



Spenser gives it the epithets " dull" and " dead-sleep- 



ing: 1 ' 



" Dull poppy, and drink- quickening setuale." 



Speaking of the plants in the Garden of Mammon, he 

 says : 



" There mournful cypress grew in greatest store, 

 And trees of bitter gall, and heben sad, 

 Dead-sleeping poppy, and black hellebore, 

 Cold coloquintida." 



- (< Not peppy, nor mandragora, 



Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 

 Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 

 Which thou ow'dst yesterday." 



SIJAKSPEARE. 



" Here henbane, poppy, hemlock here, 

 Procuring deadly. sleeping : 

 Which I do minister with fear ; 

 Not fit for each man's keeping." 



" And thou, by pain and sorrow blest, 

 Papaver, that an opiate dew 

 Conceal'st beneath thy scarlet vest, 

 Contrasting with the corn-flower blue ; 

 Autumnal months behold thy gauzy leaves 

 Bend in the rustling gale amid the tawny 



MRS. C- SMITH. 



Mr. Hunt, in his Mask, calls it the " blissful Poppy, 1 

 from its soothing and sleep-inducing qualities. 



" O gentle sleep i 



Scatter thy drowsiest poppies from above ; 

 Aud in new dreams, not soon to vanish, bless 

 My senses with the sight of her I love." 



H. SMITH. 



Harte plants it by the Palace of Death ; Thtmwoa about 



