18 The Forget- Me- Not. 



seemed ready to carry it away. The affianced bride admired 

 the beauty of the flower, and regretted its fatal destiny. The 

 lover was induced to precipitate himself into the water, where he 

 had no sooner seized the flower, than he sank upon the ilood ; 

 but making a last effort he threw the flower upon the shore, and 

 at the moment of disappearing for ever, he exclaimed, " Forget 

 me not," a circumstance that ever after emblematized the flower. 

 As he was rather weak, he must have been quite near the shore, 

 to have been able to throw it, which establishes the fact of the 

 banks of the Danube being exceedingly precipitous. The M. 

 Virginiana is the last. The Virginia Mouse Ear is hairy ; seeds 

 bristled, with hooks ; leaves ovate-lanceolate, acuminate ; ra- 

 cemes divaricate (clusters turning backwards). Leaves very 

 large; blossom white, roundish, entire, as long as the calyx, 

 crowned at the mouth. It is a weed in cultivated ground, rank- 

 ing with the rubbish. It flowers in July. 



In vain I searched the garden through, 



In vain the meadow gay, 

 For some sweet flower that might to you 



A kindly thought convey. 

 One spake too much of hope and bloom 

 For those who know of man the doom ; 

 Another, queen of the parterre, 

 Thorns on her graceful stem did bear ; 

 A third, alas ! seemed all too frail 

 For ruder breath than summer gale. 



I turned me thence to where, beneath 



The hedgerow's verdant shade, 

 The lowliest gems of Flora's wreath 



Their modest charms displayed. 

 Lured by its name, one simple flower, 

 From its sweet sisterhood I bore, 

 And bade it hasten to impart • 



The breathings of a faithful heart, 

 And plead— whate'er your future lot, 

 In weal or wo— Forget-Me-Not. 



Moral op Flowers. 



