Poppy. 
141 
“ Gentle Sleep ! 
Scatter thy drowsiest poppies from above ; 
And in new dreams, not soon to vanish, bless 
My senses with the sight of her I love.” 
Mr. Davidson states that it was the custom with the Romans 
to offer poppies to the dead, especially to those whose manes 
they designed to appease ; and Virgil, in his “ Georgies,” call¬ 
ing it the Lethsean poppy, directs that it be offered by way of 
funeral rite to Orpheus. 
This same Latin writer compares the dying Euryalus, as he 
falls to earth with his white breast pierced by the cruel sword, 
to the poppy, bowing down its wearied neck when its head is 
overcharged with rain. And his great predecessor, Homer, 
used the same metaphor, if Pope’s translation may be relied 
on ; whilst Virgil’s worthy successor, Ariosto, reproduced the 
image. 
The ancient Greeks, who regarded Sleep as the great com¬ 
forter of the world, gave him for his only ornament a wreath 
of poppies. The Romans also generally adorned the statues 
of Ceres, the beneficent deity, with the same flowers. 
Our great neglected poet, Richard Horne, in “ Orion,” one 
of the greatest and grandest epics of modern times, introduces 
this symbol blossom thus : 
“He approached 
And found the spot, so sweet with clover flower 
When they cast them down, was now arrayed 
With many-headed poppies, like a crowd 
Of dusky Ethiops in a magic cirque, 
Which had sprung up beneath them in the night. 
And all entranced the air.” 
