Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/207

117 For the Irises deep, and Convolvuli fair,

And each Blue-bell, though brilliant, and sweet, and rare,

Aye, even the famed Forget-me-not,

Were dim 'neath the sky of that fairy spot.

But the Commeline-seedling resolved to show,

Among earthly flowers, that radiant glow,

And eagerly gazed unwearied up,

To catch a ray in her tiny cup,

That when on her young stem flow'rets grew,

They might robe them in Elf-land's purest blue.

When the Fairy returned to the flowers of earth,

Young Commeline sank to her place of birth,

And quietly slept in a darksome cell

While the leaves grew sere, and brown, and fell.

Through the chill frozen winter she lay asleep,

Nor till Spring called her forth began to peep;

But when Summer's gay wreaths had clothed the bowers,

Then, brightest of all, came the Commeline-flowers,

All clad in the pure and the beautiful hue

Of the Fairy-land heaven—celestial blue.

The Flowers' Fairy-queen paused, pleased and amazed,

As, descending one day, for the first time she gazed

On the brilliant and deep hue the Commeline wore,

So far fairer than e'er she had seen it before.

And from that day the sprite to loved Fairy-land flew

Less often than e'er she was wonted to do;