Wild Germander.

A moment thou mayst lull the soul.
Of him who drains thy maddening bowl;
But soon the fleeting charm is flown,
And anguish reassumes her throne,
And calls her countless legions there,
Till man, the victim of despair,
Feels all his folly's bitter cost,

And heaven and earth alike are lost.
Though thy dark waters softly flow,
They carry misery as they go.
The simple pleasures calmly glide,
Pure as the fountain's crystal tide,
By mountain streamlets fed and filled,
On many a flower of joy distilled,
That springs beneath retirement's shade;
As violets in the hidden glade,
Send all abroad their sweet perfume,
And in the quiet valleys bloom.

"Oh! happier far, the lowliest bed,
If freedom there its influence shed;
Dearer the most ungenial star,
If crime and passion keep afar;
Sweeter the humblest flower that blows,
The simplest joy that life bestows,
Than all that earth and sky contain,

With vice or slavery in their train."

'As when some great painter dips

His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.'

I could not, without effort, constrain myself to the task of either recalling, or constructing into a regular narrative, a whole burden of horrors which lies upon my brain."

Papaver somniferum.

White Poppy.

Polyandria Monogynia.

Stem, leaves, calyx, and capsule smooth. Summits ten. Petals white tinged with purple, with large deep purple blotches at the base. The whole plant glaucous. Stem three feet high, smooth in the lower part, rough upwards with expanding hairs. Capsule roundish, very smooth.— Withering.

"That Ceres with my flower is grieved,
Some think, but they are much deceived;
For where her richest corn she sows,

The inmate poppy she allows;
Together both our seeds does fling,
And bids us both together spring.”

COWLEY.

IN Grecian mythology this plant was consisidered sacred to Ceres, because its seeds were said to be the first food the disconsolate goddess was prevailed on to taste, after the loss of her daughter Proserpine. We feel disposed to regret, that the poppy more especially con

secrated to her service was not the splendid scarlet flower so common in our fields, and with which the Greeks were well acquainted, as it owes to them the distinctive name it still bears, (Rhæas,) derived from a Greek word descriptive of the short-lived beauty of its blossoms.

In professor Martyn's notes on Virgil may be seen the reasons for deciding the point in favour of the somniferum. Perhaps one of the most conclusive is the following. The ancient statues of Ceres were decorated with ears of corn mingled with the heads of poppies; and these heads, in the statues which remain to the present day, are round capsules, like the seed-vessels of the P. somniferum, and not oblong, like those of the the P. Rhaas.

Still the blended corn and poppies are beautifully emblematic of our own, as well as of the Grecian, corn-fields.

This elegant decoration ornamented the colossal statue of Ceres at Eleusis, discovered a few years ago by Dr. Clarke and his fellowtraveller. Of this discovery, and the steps subsequently taken to secure so rich a prize, Dr. C. has given an animated description. We present it to our readers in his own words, as illustrative of the claims of the poppy tribe to honourable notice.

"We began our journey from Megara to