FABLE XXX.
The JUDGEMENT of FLOWERS.

I.
FAR from the busy haunts of men,
Far from the glaring eye of day;
Still Fancy paints, with Nature’s pen,
Such tints as never can decay.
II.
Hast thou not seen, at ev’ning hour,
When Phœbus sunk beneath the main,
Reclin’d in some sequester’d bow’r,
The village maid, or shepherd swain?
III.
Hast thou not mark’d them cull with care
Some favour’d flow’ret from the rest,
To deck the breast, or bind the hair,
Of those they priz’d and lov’d the best?
IV.
And still expressive of the mind
The emblematic gift was found;
Whether to mournful thought inclin’d,
Or with triumphant gladness crown’d.—
V.
Near Avon’s banks, a cultur’d spot,
With many a tuft of flow’rs adorn’d,
Was once an aged shepherd’s lot,
Who scenes of greater splendor scorn’d.
VI.
Three beauteous daughters bless’d his bed,
Who made the little plat their care;
And ev’ry sweet by Flora spread
Attentive still they planted there.
VII.
Once, when still ev’ning veil’d the sky,
The sire walk’d forth, and sought the bow’r;
And bade the lovely maids draw nigh,
And each select some favour’d flow’r.
VIII.
The first, with radiant splendor charm’d,
A variegated Tulip chose:
The next, with love of beauty charm’d,
Preferr’d the sweetly-blushing Rose.
IX.
The third, who mark’d, with depth of thought,
How those bright Flow’rs must droop away,
An Ev’ning Primrose only brought,
Which opens with the closing day.
X.
The sage a while in silence view’d
The various choice of flow’rs display’d;
And then (with wisdom’s gift endu’d)
Address’d each beauteous list’ning maid!
XI.
“Who chose the Tulip’s splendid dyes,
“Shall own, too late, when that decays,
“That, vainly proud, not greatly wise,
“She only caught a short-liv’d blaze.
XII.
“The Rose, though beauteous leaves and sweet
“Its glorious vernal pride adorn:
“Let her who chose beware to meet
“The biting sharpness of its thorn.
XIII.
“But she, who to fair day-light’s train
“The Ev’ning flow’r more just preferr’d;
“Chose real worth, nor chose in vain
“The one great object of regard.
XIV.
“Ambitious thou! the Tulip race
“In all life’s vary’d course beware:
“Caught with sweet Pleasure’s rosy grace,
“Do thou its sharper thorns beware.
XV.
“Thou prudent still to Virtue’s lore,
“Attend, and mark her counsels sage!
“She like thy flow’r has sweets in store,
“To soothe the ev’ning of thine age.”
XVI.
He ceas’d—attend the moral strain,
The Muse enlighten’d pours;
Nor let her pencil trace in vain
The Judgement of the Flow’rs.

FINIS.

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CHOICE EMBLEMS,
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Embellished with near Fifty Allegorical Devices: With pleasing and familiar Descriptions to each, in Prose and Verse.

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By the AUTHOR of FABLES of FLOWERS.

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“Let school-taught Pride dissemble all it can,
“These little Things are great to little Man.”

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Footnotes:

[1] The author of The Vizlis: or Enchanted Labyrinth; an Oriental Tale, 3 Vols.—Wherein describes with great taste and fancy, the different passions that are subject to misguide the warm and expanded imagination, of Youth by the Flowers they make choice of in the Labyrinth.

[2] The Vale of Cluyd.

[3] Iris, or Fleur de lis.

[4] Larkspur.

[5] The Hollyhock.

[6] Anemone, or Wind Flower.

[7] Narcissus.

[8] Bell Flower, Corn Violet, or Venus’s Looking Glass.

[9] Clytie, or the Sun-Flower.

[10] This flower is encompassed with thorns, and its root is said to have a poisonous quality.

[11] According to the old Fable, the Rose was at first always white, till Venus, while she was pursuing Adonis, scratched herself with its thorns, and thereby stained it with her cœlestial blood.

[12] The Amaranth.

[13] Alluding to the Civil Wars of York and Lancaster, in which the White Rose and the Red were adopted as tokens or devices by their different partisans.

[14] It is here to be noted that the autumnal Crocus is the Saffron Flower, so famous in Medicine.

[15] This flower opens in the morning, and fades away in the evening, closing up, and never opening again.

[16] According to the Old Fable, Jupiter being willing to make Hercules immortal, caused him to suck Juno while she was asleep; when the milk gushing out into a great quantity, some of it being spilt upon the sky, made the galaxy or milky way there, while the rest falling to the earth, gave birth to the White Lily.

[17] Juno is said to have conceived Mars by only touching the flower called Larkspur.

[18] Apollo having forsaken Clytie for this Nymph; the former, in return, informed Leucothoe’s father of his daughter’s amour with Phœbus. He thereupon buried Leucothoe alive; but Phœbus changed her into a Frankincense Tree; and after this, Clytie being discarded by the God, who was beyond measure offended with her, she pined away, and was changed into a Sun-Flower.

[19] Iris being the name given to the Rainbow.

[20] A Volcano in the North, whose sides are covered with snow.

[21] The Mountains of Niemi are in the neighbourhood of a lake of the same name, which is said by the inhabitants to be frequented by the immortal Genii.

[22] This River is bordered with Roses of as fine a bloom as those which grow in our gardens.

[23] The juice of this weed was generally supposed to be used in Enchantments—There are however several sorts of it, all of which are not esteemed deadly; but only this mentioned here, the juice of whose berries so intoxicated the army of Sweno the Danish King, being mixed in their liquor, that they became an easy prey to the Scotch army, which surprised and cut most of them to pieces.

[24] The Lake of Killarney, most romantically situated in the county of Kerry, in Ireland, where the Arbutus tree is found, which bears a most beautiful blossom, and a fruit sometimes used for food, and which is supposed to have been transplanted thither from Italy.

[25] Another name for Sweet William.

[26] This Flower is a kind of Bastard Amaranth.

[27] The Cock’s Comb being a gaudy Flower, without any agreeable smell to recommend it.

[28] The Goddess of Health.

[29] On the banks of the river Hypanis, there is a sort of insect, whose life is said only to extend from the rising to the setting of the sun.

Transcriber’s Notes:

The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is in the public domain.

Antiquated spellings were not corrected.

The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up stanzas.

Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.