38 THE POETRY OF FLOWERS 
that Apollo might bless the new-created progeny by his beams. 
Bacchus supplied rivers of nectar to nourish it: and Vertumnus 
poured his choicest perfumes over the plant. When the meta¬ 
morphosis was complete, Pomona strewed her fruit over the 
young branches, which were then crowned by Flora with a 
diadem that had been purposely prepared by the celestials to 
distinguish this queen of flowers.” 
Moore in his Irish Melodies, gives us a poetical reason for 
the beauty and delicious perfume of the rose. Others have 
stated that Love, in a feast of Olympus, in the midst of a light 
and lively dance, overthrew, with a stroke of his wing, a cup 
of nectar; which precious liquor, falling on the rose, embalmed 
it with that delightful fragrance which it still retains. 
They tell us that love in his fairy bower 
Had two blush roses, of birth divine; 
He sprinkled the one with a rainbow’s shower, 
But bathed the other with mantling wine. 
Soon did the buds, 
That drank of the floods 
Distilled by the rainbow, decline and fade; 
While those which the tide 
Of ruby had dyed 
All blushed into beauty, like thee, sweet maid ! 
Moore. 
Light, lovely limbs, to which the spirit’s play 
Gave motion, airy as the dancing spray, 
When from its stem the small bird wings away ! 
Lips, in whose rosy labyrinth, when she smiled, 
The soul was lost; and blushes swift and wild, 
As are the momentary meteors sent 
Across the uncalm, but beauteous firmament; 
