No nymph his inexperienced breast subdued,
Echo in vain the flying boy pursued
Himself alone, the foolish youth admires
And with fond look the smiling shade desires,
O'er the smooth lake with fruitless tears he grieves,
His spreading fingers shoot in verdant leaves,
Through his pale veins green sap now gently flows,
And in a short lived flower his beauty glows
Addison has given a full translation of the story of Narcissus from
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book the third.
The common daffodil of our English fields is of the genus Narcissus.
"Pray," said some one to Pope, "what is this _Asphodel_ of Homer?" "Why,
I believe," said Pope "if one was to say the truth, 'twas nothing else
but that poor yellow flower that grows about our orchards, and, if so,
the verse might be thus translated in English
--The stern Achilles
Stalked through a mead of daffodillies"
THE LAUREL
Daphne was a beautiful nymph beloved by that very amorous gentleman,
Apollo. The love was not reciprocal. She endeavored to escape his
godship's importunities by flight. Apollo overtook her. She at that
instant solicited aid from heaven, and was at once turned into a laurel.
Apollo gathered a wreath from the tree and placing it on his own
immortal brows, decreed that from that hour the laurel should be sacred
to his divinity.
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