Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.
To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,
And in the Stygian waves itself admires.
For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,
Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn.
And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn;
When, looking for his corpse, they only found
A rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown’d.”—Addison.
The cup in the centre of the flower is fabled to contain the tears of Narcissus. Virgil alludes to this (Georgic IV.) when, in speaking of the occupations of bees, he says: “Some place within the house the tears of Narcissus.” Milton also refers to this fancy in the following lines, when introducing the Narcissus under its old English name of Daffodil:—
“Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,