Who can unpitying see the flowery race
Shed by the morn then newflushed bloom resign,
Before the parching beam? So fade the fair,
When fever revels in their azure veins
But one, _the lofty follower of the sun_,
Sad when he sits shuts up her yellow leaves,
Drooping all night, and when he warm return,
Points her enamoured bosom to his ray
_Thomson_.
THE SUN-FLOWER (_Helianthus_) was once the fair nymph Clytia.
Broken-hearted at the falsehood of her lover, Apollo, (who has so many
similar sins to answer for) she pined away and died. When it was too late
Apollo's heart relented, and in honor of true affection he changed poor
Clytia into a _Sun-flower_.[073] It is sometimes called _Tourne-sol_--a
word that signifies turning to the sun. Thomas Moore helps to keep the
old story in remembrance by the concluding couplet of one of his
sweetest ballads.
Oh! the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to its close
As the sun flower turns on her god when he sets
The same look that she turned when he rose
But Moore has here poetized a vulgar error. Most plants naturally turn
towards the light, but the sun-flower (in spite of its name) is perhaps
less apt to turn itself towards Apollo than the majority of other
flowers for it has a stiff stem and a number of heavy heads. At all
events it does not change its attitude in the course of the day. The
flower-disk that faces the morning sun has it back to it in the evening.
Gerard calls the sun-flower "The Flower of the Sun or the Marigold of
Peru". Speaking of it in the year 1596 he tells us that he had some in
his own garden in Holborn that had grown to the height of fourteen feet.