In her ecstacy of grief she prophecies that henceforth all sorts of
sorrows shall be attendants upon love,--and alas! she was too correct an
oracle.
The course of true love never does run smooth.
Here is Shakespeare's version of the metamorphosis of Adonis into a
flower.
By this the boy that by her side lay killed
Was melted into vapour from her sight,
And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled,
A purple flower sprang up, checquered with white,
Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.
She bows her head, the new sprung flower to smell,
Comparing it to her Adonis' breath,
And says, within her bosom it shall dwell
Since he himself is reft from her by death;
She crops the stalk, and in the branch appears
Green dropping sap which she compares to tears.
The reader may like to contrast this account of the change from human
into floral beauty with the version of the same story in Ovid as
translated by Eusden.
Then on the blood sweet nectar she bestows,
The scented blood in little bubbles rose;
Little as rainy drops, which fluttering fly,
Borne by the winds, along a lowering sky,
Short time ensued, till where the blood was shed,
A flower began to rear its purple head
Such, as on Punic apples is revealed
Or in the filmy rind but half concealed,
Still here the fate of lonely forms we see,
_So sudden fades the sweet Anemone_.
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