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KENSINGTON GARDEN.
There haply by the ruddy damsel seen,Or shepherd-boy, they featly foot the green,While from their steps a circling verdure springs;But fly from towns, and dread the courts of kings. Mean-while sad Kenna loth to quit the grove,Hung o'er the body of her breathless love,Try'd every art (vain arts!) to change his doom,And vow'd (vain vows!) to join him in the tomb.What could she do? the Fates alike denyThe dead to live, or fairy forms to die. An herb there grows (the same old Homer tellsUlysses bore to rival Circes spells):[1]Its root is ebon-black, but sends to light,A stem that bends with flowerets milky white,Holy the plant, which gods and fairies know,But secret kept from mortal men below.On his pale limbs its virtuous juice she shed,And murmur'd mystic numbers o'er the dead,When lo! the little shape by magic powerGrew less and less, contracted to a flower,A flower, that first in this sweet garden smiled,To virgins sacred, and the snow-drop stiled. The new-born plant with sweet regret she view'd,Warm'd with her sighs, and with her tears bedew'd,
- ↑ Odys. B. 10.
