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ephemeron revels away her day's life in merry sport, without care or fear. Shelley, in his dream of flowers, has an exquisite peep of such a spot:—
And nearer to the river's trembling edge
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with white,
And starry river-buds among the sedge,
And floating Water-Lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the edge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes and reeds of so deep green,
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
Shakspeare beautifully describes a like scene, in Hamlet, when the Queen relates the manner of Ophelia's death. The passage is familiar to all—but few will object to its repetition here:—
There is a Willow grows aslant a brook
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream:
There with fantastic garlands did she come,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daysies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead-men's fingers call them:
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down the weedy trophies, and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indu'd
Unto that element; but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
