184 FLORA DOMESTICA. 



O 'ercanopied with luscious woodbine. 



With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine." 



In Comus, Milton speaks of it by its proper name. 



*' I sat me down to watch upon a bank 

 With ivy canopied, and interwove. 

 And flaunting honeysuckle/' 



And by the name of Woodbine in his Paradise Lost : 



" Let us divide our labours, thou where choice 

 Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind 

 The woodbine round this arbour, or direct 

 The clasping ivy where to climb, while I, 

 In yonder spring of roses, intermixed 

 With myrtle, find what to redress till noon." 



The rambling nature of the Honeysuckle is usually its 

 chief character in poetry : 



" You'll find some books in the arbour: on the shelf 

 Half hid by wandering honeysuckle." 



Bauhy Coknwalx-'s Falcon. 



" the poplar there 



Shoots up its spire, and shakes its leaves i' the sun 

 Fantastical, while round its slender base 



Rambles the sweet-breathed woodbine ." 



Barry Cornwall. 



" And there the frail-perfuming woodbine strayed 

 Winding its slight arms 'round the cypress bough. 

 And, as in female trust, seemed there to grow. 

 Like woman's love midst sorrow flourishing." 



Barry Cornwall. 



Cowper evidently alludes here to the wild Woodbine in 



our hedges, which is sometimes nearly white : 



" Copious of flowers, the woodbine pale and wan. 

 But well compensating her sickly looks 

 With never cloying odours, early and late." 



Chaucer repeatedly introduces the Woodbine, for ar- 

 bours, garlands, &c. ; and in one passage makes it an em- 

 blem of fideUty, like the violet: 



