Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees: And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd 1. Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd All other loveliness: its honied dew (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew) 1 This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort. The bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated. 2 Clytia, the Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better known term, the Turnsol,-which turns continually toward the sun, covers itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day.-B. DE ST. PIERRE. And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,1 From struggling with the waters of the Rhone : And the Nelumbo bud, that floats forever "Spirit! that dwellest where, 1 There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of serpentine aloes without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odor of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion, which is very short. It does not blow till toward the month of July. You then perceive it gradually open its petals, expand them, fade, and die.-ST. PIERRE. 2 There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the Valisnerian kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet, thus preserving its head above water in the swellings of the river. 3 The hyacinth. 4 It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen floating in one of these down the river Ganges, and that he still loves the cradle of his childhood. 5 And golden vials, full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints.-REV. ST. JOHN. Beyond the line of blue The boundary of the star Of thy barrier and thy bar Of the barrier overgone By the comets who were cast From their pride and from their throne, To be carriers of fire (The red fire of their heart) With speed that may not tire And with pain that shall not part— Who livest-that we know In Eternity-we feel— But the shadow of whose brow What spirit shall reveal? Thro' the beings whom thy Nesace, A model of their own.1 Thy will is done, oh God! The star hath ridden high 1 The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as having really a human form.-Vide Clarke's Sermons, vol. i. p. 26, fol. edit. The drift of Milton's argument leads him to employ language which would appear, at first sight, to verge upon their doctrine; but it will be seen immediately that he guards himself against the charge of having adopted one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the church. -Dr. Sumner's Notes on Milton's Christian Doctrine. This opinion, in spite of many testimonies to the contrary, could never have been very general. Andeus, a Thro' many a tempest, but she rode My embassy is given, Till secrecy shall knowledge be In the environs of Heaven." She ceased and buried then her burning cheek Abash d amid the lilies there, to seek A shelter from the fervor of His eye; For the stars trembled at the Deity. She stirr'd not-breath'd not-for a voice was there How solemnly pervading the calm air! A sound of silence on the startled ear Syrian of Mesopotamia, was condemned for the opinion, as heretical. He lived in the beginning of the fourth century. His disciples were called Anthropomorphites.— Vide Du Pin. Among Milton's minor poems are these lines : Dicite sacrorum præsides nemorum Deæ, Quis ille primus cujus ex imagine And afterwards : Non cui profundum Cæcitas lumen dedit 1 Seltsamen Tochter Jovis Der Phantasie.-GOETHE. |