90 FAMILIAR LESSONS IN BOTANY. 



without even craving your patience, we will venture to give 

 it to you, in Mr. Dwight's admirable translation : 



The Meta^iorphosis of Plants. 



Thee perplexes, beloved, the intertangled confusion 



Of this flowery throng, which in the garden thou seest ; 



Many the names you must hear, and ever one after another 



With its barbarous clang crowds itself into your ear. 



All in their forms are kindred, and 3^et no one like another; 



So this wonderful choir points to a half-hidden law — 



Yes, to a holy enigma. Oh, could I teach thee, beloved, 



Happily teach thee the word, which will unriddle it all ! 



Study it now as it grows, and see how the plant, ever changing, 



Step b}^ step carried up, forms into blossoms and fruit. 



Out of the seed it unfolds itself, so soon as the fruitful 



Earth's still fostering lap letteth it forth into life. 



And to the soft-wooing light, the holy, eternally moving, 



Quick the opening leaves' delicate structure commits. 



Singly slept the germ in the seed ; an embryo fore-type 



Lay enwrapped in itself, curling up under the shell ; 



Leaf, and root, and bud, half-formed, and all without color. 



Thus the kernel so dry safely protects the still life ; 



Then it flowers strivingl}^ upwards, turning the delicate moisture, 



And soon lifteth itself out of its mantle of night. 



But what shows itself first is always a simple fonnation ; 



Thus may we among plants always distinguish the child. 



Soon a following impulse lifts itself upward repeating, 



Joint upon joint built up, ever the earliest form ; 



Yet not always the same ; for, constantly changing its figtu'e, 



Opens out, as you see, ever the following leaf. 



More spread out and indented, and cut into points and divisions, 



Which, half-grown, heretofore slept in the organ below, 



And so reaches its first, its highest determined completion, 



Which in many a tribe thee to astonishment moves. 



Variously ribbed and jagged, on the juicy exuberant surface 



Seems the fullness of life free and unbounded to be. 



But here Nature holds with powerful hands the formation 



Back, and to perfecter shape softly inclines it to grow. 



Now more sparingly leads the sap through slenderer vessels, 



And the delicate plant's finer formations begin. 



Now the forth-putting edges draw themselves quietly backward. 



