140 THE POETRY OF FLOWERS 
Come, the young violets crowd my door, 
Thy earliest look to win, 
And at my silent window-sill 
The jessamine peeps in. 
All day the red-bird warbles 
Upon the mulberry near, 
And the night-sparrow trills her song 
All night with none to hear. 
Bryant. 
LET ME GO! 
BUTTERFLY-WEED. 
The asclepias tuberosa or butterfly-weed is found in abun¬ 
dance in the United States. Its flowers are of a beautifully 
bright orange colour. The down or silk of the seeds, in this 
and other species, furnishes an admirable mechanism for their 
dissemination. When the seeds are liberated by the bursting 
of the follicle which contains them, the silken fibres immedi¬ 
ately expand so as to form a sort of globe of branching and 
highly attenuated rays, with the seed suspended at its centre. 
In this state they are elevated by the wind to an indefinite 
height, and carried forward with a voyage like that of a bal¬ 
loon, until some obstacle intercepts their flight, or rain precipi¬ 
tates them to the ground. 
Nay! ours is not the morning 
Of love, when all is fresh and sweet, 
I often catch you yawning, 
You know, where’er we meet. 
