"I would like to hear them," said Toney.
"They can be produced from the archives of my memory," said the Professor; and he recited the following verses:
When morn had sown her orient gems among the golden flowers
That blushed upon their purple stalks in fairy-haunted bowers,
Among the glowing throng around, a tender bud I spied,
That meekly held its humble place the verdant walk beside.
No gaudy beauties decked its crest with variegated dyes,
Like blinding splendors blazing o'er the summer's evening skies;
With simple moss encircled round, it hung its head to earth,
And yet in Flora's language it denotes superior worth.