ifts o'er the tossing wave his nostrils bare,
And spouts pellucid columns into air;
The silvery arches catch the setting beams,
300 And transient rainbows tremble o'er the streams.

Weak with nice sense, the chaste MIMOSA stands,
From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands;
Oft as light clouds o'er-pass the Summer-glade,
Alarm'd she trembles at the moving shade;
305 And feels, alive through all her tender form,
The whisper'd murmurs of the gathering storm;
Shuts her sweet eye-lids to approaching night;
And hails with freshen'd charms the rising light.

[_Mimosa_. I. 301. The sensitive plant. Of the class Polygamy, one house.
Naturalists have not explained the immediate cause of the collapsing of
the sensitive plant; the leaves meet and close in the night during the
sleep of the plant, or when exposed to much cold in the day-time, in the
same manner as when they are affected by external violence, folding their
upper surfaces together, and in part over each other like scales or
tiles; so as to expose as little of the upper surface as may be to the
air; but do not indeed collapse quite so far, since I have found, when
touched in the night during their sleep, they fall still further;
especially when touched on the foot-stalks between the stems and the
leaflets, which seems to be their most sensitive or irritable part. Now
as their situation after being exposed to external violence resembles
their sleep, but with a greater degree of collapse, may it not be owing
to a numbness or paralysis consequent to too violent irritation, like the
faintings of animals from pain or fatigue? I kept a sensitive plant in
a dark room till some hours after day-break: its leaves and leaf-stalks
were collapsed as in its most profound sleep, and on exposing it to the
light, above twenty minutes passed before the plant was thoroughly awake
and had quite expanded itself. During the night the upper or smoother
surfaces of the leaves are appressed together; this would seem to shew
that the office of this surface of the leaf was to expose the fluids of
the plant to the light as well as to the air. See note on Helianthus.
Many flowers close up their petals during the night. See note on
vegetable respiration in Part I.]

Veil'd, with gay decency and modest pride,
310 Slow to the mosque she moves, an eastern bride;
There her soft vows unceasing love reco