Dr. Erasmus Darwin, in 1781, contributed to the literature of the subject the following lines[21]:—
[21] ‘The Botanic Garden.’ A poem in two parts; with philosophical notes. London. 1781.
“E’en round the Pole the flames of love aspire,
And icy bosoms feel the secret fire,
Cradled in snow, and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle Borametz, thy golden hair;
Rooted in earth, each cloven foot descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends,
Crops the grey coral moss, and hoary thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime;
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
And seems to bleat—a ‘vegetable lamb.’”
Dr. Erasmus Darwin appears to have bestowed “golden hair” upon his Borametz, to assimilate it to the fern-root toys that were regarded as its prototypes; but as the fern of which they were made is a native of Southern China, and as no author has described the lamb-plant as being found in a cold climate, his authority and his motive for locating it in an arctic region are alike inexplicable.
Dr. De la Croix, the other botanical author above referred to, extolled, in 1791, the fabulous animal-plant in a Latin poem[22] which Bishop Atterbury characterized as “excellent, and approaching very near to the versification of Virgil’s ‘Georgics.’”
[22] ‘Connubia Florum, Latino Carmine Demonstrata.’ Bath. 1791.
“Qui Caspia sulcant
Æquora, sive legant spumosa Boristhenis ora
Sive petant Asiam velis, et Colchica regna,
Hinc atque inde stupent visu mirabile monstrum:
Surgit humo Borames. Præcelso in stipite fructus
Stat quadrupes. Olli vellus. Duo cornua fronte
Lanea, nec desunt oculi; rudis accola credit
Esse animal, dormire die, vigilare per umbram,
Et circum exesis pasci radicitus herbis:
Carnibus Ambrosiæ sapor est, succique rubentes
Posthabeat quibus alma suum Burgundia Nectar;
Atque loco si ferre pedem Natura dedisset,
Balatu si posset opem implorare voracis
Ora lupi contra, credas in stirpe sedere
Agnum equitem, gregibusque agnorum albescere colles.”
As this has not been “done into English” (to use an old phrase), I venture to offer the following translation of it:—
“The traveller who ploughs the Caspian wave
For Asia bound, where foaming breakers lave
Borysthenes’ wild shores, no sooner lands
Than gazing in astonishment he stands;
For in his path he sees a monstrous birth,
The Borametz arises from the earth:
Upon a stalk is fixed a living brute,
A rooted plant bears quadruped for fruit,
It has a fleece, nor does it want for eyes,
And from its brows two woolly horns arise.
The rude and simple country people say
It is an animal that sleeps by day
And wakes at night, though rooted to the ground,
To feed on grass within its reach around.
The flavour of Ambrosia its flesh
Pervades; and the red nectar, rich and fresh,
Which vineyards of fair Burgundy produce
Is less delicious than its ruddy juice.
[39] If Nature had but on it feet bestowed,
Or with a voice to bleat the lamb endowed,
To cry for help against the threat’ning fangs
Of hungry wolves; as on its stalk it hangs,
Seated on horseback it might seem to ride,
Whit’ning with thousands more the mountain side.”