POLYANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. Papaver. 651 
Dill. Elth. 223. 290— E. Bot. 66—Park. 369. 4 —H. Ox. iii. 14. 12— Pet. 
52. 4. 
{Plant twelve to eighteen inches high; leaves glaucous beneath. E.) 
Leaves winged, nearly smooth; root-leaves on very long hairy leaf¬ 
stalks ; wings two or three pair, oval-spear-shaped, deeply cut, almost 
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<e Heedless I past thee in life’s morning hour. 
Thou comforter of woe! 
Till sorrow taught me to confess thy power. 
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Hail sacred blossom ! thou canst ease 
The wretched victims of disease ; 
Canst close those weary eyes in gentle sleep. 
That never open but to weep ; 
For oh ! thy potent charm 
Can agonizing pain disarm, 
Expel imperious memory from her seat, 
And bid the throbbing heart forget to beat. 
Soul-soothing plant! that can such blessings give, 
By thee the mourner bears to live ; 
By thee the hopeless die ! 
Oh, ever friendly to despair! 
Might sorrow’s palid votary dare, 
Without a crime, («) that remedy implore 
Which bids the spirit from its bondage fly, 
I’d court thy palliative aid no more ; 
No more I’d sue that thou shouldst spread 
Thy spell around my aching head, 
But would conjure thee to impart 
Thy balsam for a broken heart; 
And by thy soft Lethean power, 
(Inestimable flower!) 
Burst these terrestrial bonds. 
And other regions try.” 
Despite, however, the most empassioned strains, breathing the deep tone of feeling 
too cruelly agitated, we cannot but reiterate, while, in sympathy for human frailty, 
we pity more than blame the infirmity of our common nature, lamentable indeed is it 
that man, the rational being, turning from the only true source of genuine consolation, 
should, as the beast that perisheth, 
“ From the low earth tear a polluting weedE.) 
(«) (These fine lines were composed by the Hon. H. F- -, at a period when 
that amiable and accomplished female was indeed but “ too severely tried,” and it is hoped 
that ere the conclusion of her sufferings she derived some comfort from the friendship and 
professional skill of Dr. Withering. As connected with the subject immediately before us, 
it may perhaps be allowable here to introduce our Author’s own sentiments, as communi¬ 
cated to another lady, who, also, in her sad extremity confidentially sought the solace of his 
advice. “ To encourage a desire to die is an unworthy tendency to desert the post 
allotted to us; and if such desires once become motives to make us neglect the means of 
restoring or preserving health ; such motives and such conduct, directly or indirectly 
tending to cut short our existence, are, perhaps, altogether as indefensible and as wicked, 
as the still shorter modes of the pistol or the halter.” Memoirs and Tracts of Dr. Withering, 
p. 182. E.) 
