208 THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
Where morning paints the orient skies, 
Her fingers burn with roseate dyes! 
And when, at length, with pale decline, 
Its florid beauties fade and pine, 
Sweet as in youth its balmy breath 
Diffuses odour e’en in death ! 
O, whence could such a plant have sprung I 
Attend—for thus the tale is sung:— 
When humid from the silvery stream, 
Effusing beauty’s warmest beam, 
Venus appeared in flushing hues. 
Mellowed by Ocean’s briny dews; 
When, in the starry courts above, 
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove 
Disclosed the nymph of azure glance! 
The nymph who shakes the martial lance! 
Then, then, in strange eventful hour, 
The earth produced an infant flower, 
Which sprung with blushing tinctures dress’d. 
And wanton’d o’er its parent breast. 
The gods beheld this brilliant birth, 
And hail’d the Rose, the boon of earth . 
With nectar drops, a ruby tide, 
The sweetly orient buds they dyed, 
And bade them bloom, the flowers divin* 
Of him who sheds the teeming vine ; 
And bade them on the spangled thorn 
Expand their bosoms to the morn 
