SENSITIVE PLANT. 
177 
The same writer thus characterizes the general 
habits of this plant: 
Weak, with nice sense, the chaste Mimosa stands, 
From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands: ■ 
Oft as light clouds o’erpass the summer's glade, 
Alarm’d she trembles at the moving shade, 
And feels, alive through ail her tender form, 
The whisper’d murmurs of the gathering storm ; 
Shuts her sweet eyelids to approaching night, 
And hails with freshen'd charms the rosy light. 
Her susceptibility, however, even in the 
highest degree of excitement, never instigates 
her to injure the indiscreet hand which touches 
her, but only to draw "back from it. The Sensi¬ 
tive Plant strives neither to punish nor to re¬ 
venge herself. Like those modest females, 
who never think of arming themselves with 
severity, she uses not her thorny bristles; she 
merely shrinks from the approach of the in¬ 
truder. The violet is the emblem of that retiring 
modesty which proceeds from reflection; but 
the Sensitive Plant is a perfect image of inno¬ 
cence and virgin modesty. She suspects no 
harm, because she knows none, and shows her¬ 
self without mistrust: but, as soon as she is 
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