212 
THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
Yod, honours of the flowry meads, I pray, 
You pretty daughters of the earth and sun, 
With mild and seemly breathing straight display 
My bitter sighs, that have my heart undone* 
-♦— 
HE ART’ S-E ASE, 
BY SHAKSPEARE. 
I SAW, 
Flying between the cold moon and the earth, 
Cupid all arm’d ; a certain aim he took 
At a fair vestal throned in the west. 
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, 
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. 
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft 
Quench’d in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon. 
And the imperial vot’ress passed on, 
in maiden meditation, fancy-free. 
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell: 
It fell upon a little western flower, 
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound. 
And maidens call it Love in Idleness. 
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid, 
Will make a man or woman madly dote 
Upon the next live creature that it sees. 
