Etumoiu. 
122 
Anemone.... Forsaken. 
Anemone was a nymph, beloved by Zephyr. Flora, 
jealous of her, banished her from her court, and trans¬ 
formed her into a flower, that blows before the return 
of spring. Zephyr has abandoned this unhappy beauty 
to the rude caresses of Boreas, who, unable to gain her 
love, harshly shakes her, half opens her blossoms, and 
causes her immediately to fade. An Anemone, with 
these words, Brevis est usus —“Her reign is short”—is 
touchingly expressive of the transitory nature of beauty. 
In spring the green woods of merry England are 
covered with the flowers of the Anemone. Turn the 
eye whichever way you will, there it greets you like 
“ a pleasant thoughtit forms a bed of flowers around 
the foot of the mighty oak, and below the tangling 
brambles, which you may peep between, but cannot 
pass,—there, also, are its pearly blossoms bending. 
The Greeks named it the flower of the Wind, and so 
plentiful is it in our country that we might fancy the 
breeze had blown it everywhere. The gaudy Ane¬ 
mone of the garden, the emblem of forsaken love, is 
known to all; but our favourites are the uncultivated 
offspring of the windy woods, which come long before 
the broad green leaves hang overhead to shelter them. 
All flowers will droop in absence of the sun 
That waked their sweets. 
Dryden. 
