e had seen
in the water the picture of his radiant beauty, became the lord and
master of her heart and soul. All night she awaited his coming, and
the Dawn saw her looking eastward for the first golden gleams from the
wheels of his chariot. All day she followed him with her longing gaze,
nor did she ever cease to feast her eyes upon his beauty until the
last reflection of his radiance had faded from the western sky.

Such devotion might have touched the heart of the sun-god, but he had
no wish to own a love for which he had not sought. The nymph's
adoration irked him, nor did pity come as Love's pale substitute when
he marked how, day by day, her face grew whiter and more white, and
her lovely form wasted away. For nine days, without food or drink, she
kept her shamed vigil. Only one word of love did she crave. Unexacting
in the humility of her devotion, she would gratefully have nourished
her hungry heart upon one kindly glance. But Apollo, full of scorn and
anger, lashed up his fiery steeds as he each day drove past her, nor
deigned for her a glance more gentle than that which he threw on the
satyrs as they hid in the dense green foliage of the shadowy woods.

Half-mocking, Diana said, "In truth the fair nymph who throws her
heart's treasures at the feet of my golden-locked brother that he may
trample on them, is coming to look like a faded flower!" And, as she
spoke, the hearts of the other immortal dwellers in Olympus were
stirred with pity.

"A flower she shall be!" they said, "and for all time shall she live,
in life that is renewed each year when the earth stirs with the
quickening of spring. The long summer days shall she spend forever in
fearless worship of the god of her love!"

And, as they willed, the nymph passed out of her human form, and took
the form of a flower, and evermore--the emblem of constancy--does she
gaze with fearless ardour on the face of her love.

"The heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look that she turned when he rose."

Some there are who say that not into the bold-faced sunflower did her
metamorphosis take place, but into that purple heliotrope that gives
an exquisite offering of fragrance to the sun-god when his warm rays
touch it. And in the old walled garden, while the bees drowsily hum,
and the white pigeons croon, and the dashing sunflower gives Apollo
gaze