My Eye is fuller than my vase –
Her Cargo – is of Dew –
And still – my Heart – my Eye outweighs –
East India – for you!
Her Cargo – is of Dew –
And still – my Heart – my Eye outweighs –
East India – for you!
(F.228/J.202)
[1] My:: the narrator is a flower. Eye:: the bud or sprout of a plant. vase:: a calyx, sepals of a flower, resembling a vase (OED 2c).
[2] Cargo, Dew:: the dew loaded on the calyx.
[3] Heart:: the receptacle, central part of a flower.
[4] East India:: East India fly, also called blister fly. for you:: these flies are raised commercially; they feed on leaves.
the blistering-beetle, or, native blister-fly of East India, abounds also at Lahore, In their fresh state, or as an Essence with Spirit or Vinegar, they act more powerfully than the Spanish blistering-flies, containing more cantharadine than the cantharides themselves.——Thirty-five Years in the East (1852)
East India Fly (lytta gygas). The color is a deep azure or sea-blue; all parts of the insect, head, elytra or wing-cases, body and legs, are of the same color, with the exception of the under part of the chest, on which there is a brown spot. Its size is from three fourths of an inch to an inch in length, being nearly twice the size of the lytta vesicatoria, or cantharides. They have little or no odor. This species of cantharides has been tried at the Philadelphia alms-house. They proved to be exceedingly active as vesicatories, and never failed in their effect. They produce a vesication, in general, much earlier than the Spanish fly, and, from being found so much more active,——Encyclopaedia Americana (1836)
