BEAUTY. 51 
Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung ? 
Attend—for thus the tale is sung :— 
When, humid, from the silvery stream, 
Effusing beauty’s warmest beam, 
Venus appear’d, in flushing hues, 
Mellow’d by ocean’s briny dews ; 
When, in the starry courts above, 
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove 
Disclos’d the nymph of azure glance, 
The nymph who shakes the martial lance! 
Then, then, in strange eventful hour, 
The earth produc’d an infant flower, 
Which sprung, with blushing tinctures drest, 
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 divine 
Of him who sheds the teeming vine; 
And bade them on the spangled thorn 
Expand their bosoms to the morn. 





Jami, an eastern poet, says, “ You may 
place a hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs and : 
flowers before the nightingale; yet he wishes 
not, in his constant heart, for more than the 
sweet breath of his beloved rose.”’ 
Oh, sooner shall the rose of May, 
Mistake her own sweet nightingale ; 
And to some meaner minstrel’s lay, 
Open her bosom’s glowing veil, 
E2 


