The first is by Goldsmith:
"ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH, STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING
"Sure 'twas by Providence designed,
Rather in pity than in hate,
That he should be like Cupid blind,
To save him from Narcissus' fate."
The other is by Cowper:
"ON AN UGLY FELLOW
"Beware, my friend, of crystal brook
Or fountain, lest that hideous hook,
Thy nose, thou chance to see;
Narcissus' fate would then be thine,
And self-detested thou would'st pine,
As self-enamoured he."
CLYTIE
Clytie was a water-nymph and in love with Apollo, who made her no
return. So she pined away, sitting all day long upon the cold
ground, with her unbound tresses streaming over her shoulders.
Nine days she sat and tasted neither food nor drink, her own tears
and the chilly dew her only food. She gazed on the sun when he
rose, and as he passed through his daily course to his setting;
she saw no other object, her face turned constantly on him. At
last, they say, her limbs rooted in the ground, her face became a
flower [Footnote: The sunflower.] which turns on its stem so as
always to face the sun throughout its daily course; for it retains
to that extent the feeling of the nymph from whom it sprang.
Hood, in his "Flowers," thus alludes to Clytie:
"I will not have the mad Clytie,
Whose head is turned by the sun;
The tulip is a courtly quean,
Whom therefore I will shun;
The cowslip is a country wench,
The violet is a nun;--
But I will woo the dainty rose,
The queen of every one.
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