Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/202

116 When this plaint had gone

Wafting along o'er leaf and stem,

Full many a flower

Who deemed her own beauty a peerless gem,

Began to lour,

And sulkily shut up her leaves an hour

Before the sun

Had gone to his rest in his western bower.

One sly little bud resolved to see

What the tint of this elfin heaven might be;

And when the Fay

Spread her gossamer wings, to fly away

For a transient glimpse of her home so bright,

There clung to her foot a seedling light

Of the Commeline-flower—and up they go

(While marvelled the Fairy what pinched her so)

Aloft, aloft!

On pinions soft,

The Fairy flew onward with strengthening speed,

And taking heed

To be mute and still, and watchful, too,

Went on the adventurous Commeline-seed.

And when over them, clear, and bright, and high,

Rose the dazzling canopied fairy sky,

No longer wondered young Commeline

That the azure of earth as dim was seen

By their gentle and guardian elfin queen;