« * WS” (Opium ♦ 
Papam'l Homniterum. Natural Order: Papaveracece — Poppy Family. 
I^ROM this plant is obtained that powerful narcotic, the opium 
of commerce. It has a milky juice that exudes from incisions 
"made on the capsules of the plant. After it has been col- 
|| v lected, it is worked in the sun until it is firm enough to be 
formed into cakes for exportation. Ceres is pictured carrying 
^Poppies in her hand, because, when she lost her daughter, 
Jupiter gave her Poppies to eat, that she might get sleep and 
gP r est, which she could not before, for the intensity of her grief. The 
flower s are white, large and double. T he Oriental Poppy from the 
P Levant is a beautiful flower ol a rich scarlet. The capsule is round, 
with a flat cap or covering, underneath which are small openings 
through which the seeds may be scattered as from a pepperbox. 
**F 
OLEEP, sleep! be thine the sleep that throws 
^ Elysium o’er the soul’s repose, 
Without a dream, save such as wind, 
Like midnight angels, through the mind. 
-Robert M. Bird. 
T TOW beautiful is sleep! 
Yet if its purest beauties thou wouldst feel, 
On the babe’s slumber creep, 
And bid thy heart confess its mute appeal. 
Yet sleep is awful, too — 
So like to death’s its features it can dress; 
Meek slumberer! while I view 
Thine own, I deeply feel its awfulness. 
— Barton. 
/A MAGIC sleep! O comfortable bird 
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind 
Till it is hush’d and smooth. O unconfined 
Restraint! imprison’d liberty! great key 
To golden palaces — ay, all the world 
Of silvery enchantment! 
PROM a poppy I have taken 
Mortal’s balm and mortal’s bane; 
Juice that, creeping through the heart, 
—Keats. 
Deadens every sense of smart; 
Doomed to heal or doomed to kill, 
Fraught with good, or fraught with ill. 
— Airs. Robinso?i. 
