50 
FLORAL POESY. 
ECHO. 
His name revives, and lifts me up from earth ; 
See, see, the mourning fount, whose springs weep yet, 
Th’ untimely fate of that too beauteous boy, 
That trophy of self-love, and spoil of nature, 
Who (now transformed into this drooping flower) 
Hangs the repentant head back from the stream : 
As if it wished,—would I had never looked 
fn such a flattering mirror ! 0 Narcissus ! 
Thou that wast once (and yet art) my Narcissus, 
Had Echo but been private with thy thoughts. 
She would have dropt away herself in tears, 
Till she had all turned waste, that in her 
(As in a truer glass) thou mightst have gazed, 
And seen thy beauties by more kind reflection. 
But self-love never yet could look on truth, 
But with bleared beams ; slick flattery and she 
Are twin-born sisters, and do mix their eyes, 
As if you sever one, the other dies. 
Why did the gods give thee a heavenly form 
And earthly thoughts to make thee proud of it ? 
Why do I ask ? ’Tis now the known disease 
i hat beauty hath, to bear too deep a sense 
Of her own self-conceived excellence. 
Oh hadst thou known the worth of Heaven’s rich gift, 
Thou wouldst have turned it to a truer use, 
And not (with starved and covetous ignorance) 
Pined in continual eyeing that bright gem 
The glance whereof to others had been more 
Than to thy famished mind the wide world’s store. 
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