f the deepen'd glooms.
--Here oft the Naiads, as they chanced to play
Near the dread Fane on THOR'S returning day,
Saw from red altars streams of guiltless blood
Stain their green reed-beds, and pollute their flood;
105 Heard dying babes in wicker prisons wail,
And shrieks of matrons thrill the affrighted Gale;
While from dark caves infernal Echoes mock,
And Fiends triumphant shout from every rock!
---So still the Nymphs emerging lift in air
110 Their snow-white shoulders and their azure hair;
Sail with sweet grace the dimpling streams along,
Listening the Shepherd's or the Miner's song;
But, when afar they view the giant-cave,
On timorous fins they circle on the wave,
115 With streaming eyes and throbbing hearts recoil,
Plunge their fair forms, and dive beneath the soil.--
Closed round their heads reluctant eddies sink,
And wider rings successive dash the brink.--
Three thousand steps in sparry clefts they stray,
120 Or seek through sullen mines their gloomy way;
On beds of Lava sleep in coral cells,
Or sigh o'er jasper fish, and agate shells.
Till, where famed ILAM leads his boiling floods
Through flowery meadows and impending woods,
125 Pleased with light spring they leave the dreary night,
And 'mid circumfluent surges rise to light;
Shake their bright locks, the widening vale pursue,
Their sea-green mantles fringed with pearly dew;
In playful groups by towering THORP they move,
130 Bound o'er the foaming wears, and rush into the Dove.

With fierce distracted eye IMPATIENS stands,
Swells her pale cheeks, and brandishes her hands,

[_Impatiens._ l. 131. Touch me not. The seed vessel consists of one
cell with five divisions; each of these, when the seed is ripe, on being
touched, suddenly folds itself into a spiral form, leaps from the stalk
and disperses the seeds to a great distance by it's elasticity. The
capsule of the geranium and the beard of wild oats are twisted for a
similar purpose, and dislodge their seeds on wet days, when the
ground is best fitted to receive them. Hence one of these, with its
adhering capsule or beard fixed on a stand, serves the purpose of
an hygrometer, twisting itself more or less according to the moisture
of the air.

The awn of barley is furnished with stiff point