STORY OF THE SUNFLOWER 271 



To bind them all about with tiny rings. 



Linger awhile upon some bending planks 



That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks, 



And watch intently Nature's gentle doings: 



They will be found softer than ringdove's cooings. 



How silent comes the water round that bend! 



Not the minutest whisper does it send 



To the overhanging sallows: blades of grass 



Slowly across the chequer'd shadows pass. 



THE STORY OF THE SUNFLOWER 



ANONYMOUS 



CLYTIE was a beautiful water-nymph in love with 

 Apollo. But, alas! he did not love her. So she 

 pined away, sitting all day on the cold, hard ground, 

 with her unbound tresses streaming over her 

 shoulders. Nine days she sat and tasted neither 

 food nor drink, her own tears and the chilly dew 

 her only food. She gazed on the sun when he 

 rose, and as he passed through his daily course 

 to his setting, she saw no other object, her face 

 turned constantly to him. At last, they say, her 

 limbs rooted to the ground, her face became a 

 sunflower, which turns on its stem so as always 

 to face the sun throughout its daily course; for 

 it retains to that extent the feeling of the nymph 

 from whom it sprang. 



