ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF PLANTS. (continued 4)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Folkard, Richard
“If spring proves mild ’tis Hyacinthus’ time,
A flower which also rose from Phœbus’ crime;
Th’ unhappy quoit which rash Apollo threw,
Obliquely flying, smote his tender brow,
And pale alike he fell, and Phœbus stood,
One pale with guilt, and one with loss of blood;
Whence a new flower with sudden birth appears,
And still the mark of Phœbus’ sorrow wears;
Spring it adorns, and Summer’s scenes supplies
With blooms of various forms and various dyes.”
Ovid gives a slightly different version of the tragedy, which he narrates in the following lines:—
“The mid-day sun now shone with equal light
Between the past and the succeeding night;
They strip, then, smoothed with suppling oil, essay
To pitch the rounded quoit, their wonted play:
A well-pois’d disk first hasty Phœbus threw;
It cleft the air, and whistled as it flew;
It reach’d the mark, a most surprising length,
Which spoke an equal share of art and strength.
Scarce was it fall’n, when with too eager hand
Young Hyacinth ran to snatch it from the sand;
But the curst orb, which met a stony soil,
Flew in his face with violent recoil.
Both faint, both pale and breathless now appear,
The boy with pain, the am’rous god with fear.
He ran, and rais’d him bleeding from the ground,
Chafes his cold limbs, and wipes the fatal wound:
Then herbs of noblest juice in vain applies;
The wound is mortal, and his skill defies.”
* * * * * * * *
“While Phœbus thus the laws of fate reveal’d,
Behold the blood which stained the verdant field
Is blood no longer; but a flower full blown
Far brighter than the Tyrian scarlet shone.
A Lily’s form it took; its purple hue
Was all that made a diff’rence to the view.
Nor stopp’d he here; the god upon its leaves
The sad expression of his sorrow leaves;
And to this hour the mournful purple wears
Ai, Ai, inscribed in funeral characters.