








199 THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
TO THE NARCISSUS 
BY BEN JONSON. 
ARIsE, and speak thy sorrows, Echo, rise; 
Here, by this fountain, where thy love did pine, 
Whose memory lives fresh to vulgar fame, 
Shrined in this yellow flower, that bears his name, 
ECHO. 
His name revives, and lifts me up from earth ;— 
See, see, the mourning fount, whose springs 
weep yet 
Th’ untimely fate of that too beauteous boy, 
That trophy of self-love, and spoil of nature, 
Who (now transform’d into this drooping flower) 
Hangs the repentant head back from the stream; 
As if it wish’d—would I had never look’d 
In such a flattering mirror! O, Narcissus! 
Thou that wast once (and yet art) my Narcissua 
Had Echo but been private with thy thoughts, 
She would have dropt away herself in tears, 
Till she had all turn’d waste, that in her 
(As ina true glass) thou mightst have gazed, 
And seen thy beauties by more kind reflection. 
But self-love never yet could look on truth, 
But with blear’d beams ; slick flattery and she 
Are twin-born sisters, and do mix their eyes, 
As if you sever one, the other dies. 



















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