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But even while I watched these flowers, the queen
Began to droop,
Her proud array flagged quickly, her high head
Low, low, did stoop,
And soon the cause of this I could descry;
The vase, whose waters fed her pride, was dry.[1]
And she, deprived of this distinctive wealth,
No more might rank
Among the great, or beautiful, or proud,
But dimly sank,
In loathsome dusk deformity, beside
The very things o'er whom her swollen pride
Had been most arrogant. And when I saw
Her swift decay,
And marked the giddy flies on other flowers
As fondly play,
As they had toyed with her so lately lost,
Methought how false was all her haughty boast!
How vain that pride of birth, or wealth, or state,
Or fleeting power,
Which blots the vaunted reason of our race,
- ↑ The Lobelia fulgens, or Cardinal-flower, here alluded to, requires a constant and plentiful supply of water;—if deprived of it, the long stem bends to the ground, the flowers flag—and, unless soon indulged with its wonted libations, the plant dies.
