556 WILD FLOWERS OF 



Ivy that covers the char of fire and the indentation 

 of rage, and the naked ruin that stood sullen with 

 desolation is taught to smile in romantic beauty with 

 ivy-mantled walls and turrets, inspiring only pleasing 

 or pensive thoughts like some rankling injury that 

 religion and charity have combined to cover with good 

 deeds. Thus wherever the Ivy twines it conciliates 

 the past and effaces the memory of wrong, it gives a 

 pictorial grandeur to destruction which is a redeeming 

 feature in itself, and charms the fancv to be satisfied 



V 



with the present scene. A modern poet has well 

 depicted the honourable garb given to ruin by the 

 Ivy's ever verdant tapestry ! 



" Every where the torn and mouldering past 

 Hung with the Ivy. For Time, smit with honour 

 Of what he slew, cast his own mantle on him, 

 That none should mock the dead."* 



The shrubbery, now, with spiry fir, dark pine, and 

 graceful cypress, looks refreshing to the eye, mixed 

 with the sienna-tinged foliage of the retentive beech, 

 while high in air, the round bushy mistletoe once 

 again exhibits its strange flaccid leaves, and white 

 mirth-inspiring berries reminding of the approach of 

 merrie Christmas. Here and there the orange-colour- 

 ed clustered berries of the bryouy deck the hedge, 

 and occasionally a deep - indented elder - tree, with 

 neglected umbels streaming in the air like the raven 

 tresses of some love-lorn and bewildered maniac dam- 

 sel. " Peep, peep, peep," rings in the ear, should we 

 approach the mossy edge of the dark frowning wood, 

 from a troop of little long - tailed " Mumruffins,"^ 

 following their leader in gliding order among the 

 budding branches ; and in spots like this, the wild 



* " The Roman," a Poem, t The Long-tailed Tit. (Parus caudatus.^ 



