The feeble stems to stormy blasts a prey,
Their sickly beauties droop and pine away.
The winds forbid the flowers to flourish long,
Which owe to winds their names in Grecian song.”—Congreve.
The Greek poet, Bion, in his epitaph on Adonis, makes the Anemone the offspring of the tears of the sorrowing Venus.
“Alas the Paphian! fair Adonis slain!
Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain,
But gentle flowers are born and bloom around
From every drop that falls upon the ground.
Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the Rose,