With charms despotic fair CHONDRILLA reigns
        O’er the soft hearts of five fraternal swains;
        If sighs the changeful nymph, alike they mourn;
100 And, if she smiles, with rival raptures burn. 
        So, tun’d in unison, Eolian Lyre! 
        Sounds in sweet symphony thy kindred wire;
        Now, gently swept by Zephyr’s vernal wings,
        Sink in soft cadences the love-sick strings;
105 And now with mingling chords, and voices higher,
        Peal the full anthems of the aerial choir.

[Chondrilla. l. 97.  Of the class Confederate Males.  The numerous florets, which constitute the disk of the flowers in this class, contain in each five males surrounding one female, which are connected at top, whence the name of the class.  An Italian writer, in a discourse on the irritability of flowers, asserts, that if the top of the floret be touched, all the filaments which support the cylindrical anther will contrast themselves, and that by thus raising or depressing the anther the whole of the prolific dust is collected on the stigma.  He adds, that if one filament be touched after it is separated from the floret, that it will contract like the muscular fibres of animal bodies, his experiments were tried on the Centaurea Calcitrapoides, and on artichokes, and globe-thistles.  Discourse on the irratability of plants.  Dodsley.]

        Five sister-nymphs to join Diana’s train
        With thee, fair LYCHNIS! vow,—­but vow in vain;
        Beneath one roof resides the virgin band,
110 Flies the fond swain, and scorns his offer’d hand;
        But when soft hours on breezy pinions move,
        And smiling May attunes her lute to love,
        Each wanton beauty, trick’d in all her grace,
        Shakes the bright dew-drops from her blushing face;
115 In gay undress displays her rival charms,
        And calls her wondering lovers to her arms.

        When the young Hours amid her tangled hair
        Wove the fresh rose-bud, and the lily fair,

[Lychnis. l. 108.  Ten males and five females.  The flowers which contain the five females, and those which contain the ten males, are found on different plants; and often at a great distance from each other.  Five of the ten males arrive at their maturity some days before the other five, as may be seen by opening the corol before it naturally expands itself.  When the females arrive at their maturity, they rise above the petals, as if looking abroad for their distant husbands; the scarlet ones contribute much to the beauty of our meadows in May and June.]

        Proud GLORIOSA led three chosen swains,
120 The blushing captives of her virgin chains.—­
        —­When Time’s rude hand a bark of wrinkles spread
        Round her weak limbs, and silver’d o’er her head,
        Three other youths her riper years engage,
        The flatter’d victims of her wily age.