LUE-BOTTLE. Centaurea Cyanus. Class 19, Syngenesia. Order: Frustranea. The beautiful blue of this flower, which is of the colour of an unclouded sky, has made it the emblem of a tender and delicate sentiment, nourished by hope. According to ancient fable, this plant was called Cyanus, after a youth of that name, whose attachment to corn-flowers was so strong, that he employed his time chiefly in making garlands of them, seldom leaving the fields so long as his favourite flower was to be found, and always dressing himself in the fine blue colour of the flower he so much admired. Flora was his goddess; and, of all her gifts, this was the one he most admired. At last the youth was found dead in a corn-field, in the midst of a quantity of blue-bottles he had gathered. Soon after Flora transformed his body into this flower, in token of the veneration he had for her divinity.
DELICACY.
And other verdant spots in life’s dull waste,
And if my years roll on in loneliness,
Still I must tarry where my lot is cast,—
A martyr-task perchance—but not the less
Will I fulfil it—it must end at last,
And I will strive on other hearts to pour
The gifts of gladness mine may know no more!
I am but what I was before we met—
Beloved by some because my face is fair,
Because my brow throbs ’neath a coronet,
Because my brother is Ferrara’s heir,—
But still in solitude I must forget
That one has known my inmost thoughts to share:
I must return amid the reckless throng,
To the deep silence I have nursed so long.