She fell on her Love's bosom, hugg'd it fast,
And with Leander's name she breath'd her last!
Neptune for pity in his arms did take them,
Flung them into the air, and did awake them
Like two sweet birds, surnam'd th' Acanthides[1],
Which we call Thistle-warps, that near no seas
Dare ever come, but still in couples fly,
And feed on thistle tops, to testify
The hardness of their first life in their last;
The first, in thorns of love, that sorrows past:
And so most beautiful their colours show,
As none (so little) like them; her sad brow
A sable velvet feather covers quite,
E'en like the forehead cloth[2] that in the night,
Or when they sorrow, ladies us'd to wear:
Their wings, blue, red, and yellow, mix'd appear;
Colours, that as we construe colours, paint
Their states to life;—the yellow shows their saint,
The dainty Venus, left them; blue, their truth;
The red and black, ensigns of death and ruth.
- ↑ "———resonant et acanthida, dumi." Virg. G. iii. v. 338. The Gold-finch was formerly, as in the present instance, supposed to be the acanthis of the ancients, but Pennant gives that appellation to the Linnet; and Dryden translates the line quoted, "When linnets fill the woods with tuneful sound."
- ↑ The forehead cloth was a bandage used to prevent wrinkles.
