Part 31

I see her now within my view,-- A spirit, yet a woman too!-- Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty; A countenance in which do meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food.

Wordsworth.

* * * * *

Time has small power O’er features the mind moulds. Roses where They once have bloomed a fragrance leave behind; And harmony will linger on the wind; And suns continue to light up the air,

Your qualities surpassing your charms, have drawn from me a confession of pure love.]

When set; and music from the broken shrine Breathes, it is said, around whose altar-stone His flower the votary has ceased to twine:--Types of the beauty that, when youth is gone, Breathes from the soul whose brightness mocks decline.

George Hill.

* * * * *

Rudely thou wrongest my deare heart’s desire, In finding fault with her too portly pride; The thing which I do most in her admire, Is of the world unworthy most envied. For in those lofty looks is close implied Scorn of base things,--disdain of foul dishonour, Threatening rash eyes which gaze on her so wide That loosely they ne dare to look upon her!

Spenser.

JASMINE.... Amiability.

The Jasmine is a happy emblem of an amiable disposition. In all situations, it suffers the gardener to train its slender branches into any form he chooses: most commonly forming a living tapestry for arbours and garden walls, and everywhere throwing out a profusion of delicate and charming flowers, which perfume the air. The poets have showered their praise upon this plant, and all unite in considering it the emblem of the winsome quality of amiability. After paying a glowing tribute to the beauty and sweetness of the Violet, Thomas Miller, the “basket-maker” poet, thus speaks of the Jasmine:--

Stepping further into summer, comes the star-white Jasmine,--that sweet perfumer of the night, which only throws out its full fragrance when its sister stars are keeping watch in the sky; as if, when the song of the nightingale no longer cheered the darkness, it sent forth its silent aroma upon the listening air. Many a happy home does it garland, and peeps in at many a forbidden lattice, where Love and Beauty repose. Little did the proud courtiers and stately dames of Queen Elizabeth’s day dream that this sweet-scented creeper (a sprig of which seemed to make the haughty haughtier still) would one day become so common as to cluster around and embower thousands of humble English cottages,--a degradation which, could they but have witnessed, would almost have made every plait of their starched ruffs bristle up, like “quills upon the fretful porcupine.” Beautiful are its long, drooping, dark-green shoots, trailing around the trellis-work of a door-way, like a green curtain embroidered with silver flowers; while here and there the queenly Moss-Rose, creeping in and out like the threads of a fanciful tapestry, its crimson face amid the embowered green,--a beautiful lady peeping through a leaf-clad casement.

* * * * *

A lover on the Indian Sea, Sighing for her left far behind, Inhaled the scented Jasmine tree, As it perfumed the evening wind: Shoreward he steered at dawn of day, And saw the coast all round embowered, And brought a starry sprig away, For her by whose green cot it flowered.

And oft when from that scorching shore, In after years those odours came, He pictured his green cottage door, The shady porch, and window-frame, Far, far away, across the foam: The very Jasmine-flower that crept Round the thatched roof about his home, Where she he loved then safely slept.

Miller.

WOODBINE, OR HONEYSUCKLE.... Affection.

This elegant, climbing shrub at once delights the eye and gratifies the smell, by the exquisite fragrance of its blossoms; while it confers on those humble dwellings in the rural districts of England and America, a character of cheerfulness unknown in other countries. It begins to flower in May, and puts forth its blossoms until the end of summer. It is chosen as the emblem of affection, from its clinging to trees and lattices with all the ardour and constancy of a weak, confiding woman, clinging to one of the stronger, sterner sex, in prosperity and in adversity.

* * * * *

Copious of flowers, the woodbine pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks With never-cloying odours, early and late.

Cowper.

* * * * *

Sister, sister, what dost thou twine? I am weaving a wreath of the wild Woodbine; I have streaked it without like the sunset hue, And silvered it white with the morning dew: And there is not a perfume which on the breeze blows From the lips of the Pink or the mouth of the Rose, That’s sweeter than mine--that’s sweeter than mine: I have mingled them all in my wild Woodbine.

Miller.

* * * * *

A Honeysuckle, on the sunny side, Hung round the lattices its fragrant trumpets.

Miss Landon.