IVY 



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servants. Horace, Virgil, and other ancient writers refer to 

 this, and are themselves thus reported as crowned. 



" A rare old plant is the ivy green," but our modern 

 poets do not ordinarily receive it with favour, Carrington, 

 for example, in his Dartmoor, associates it entirely with 

 decay and fallen greatness, clothing the old ruins with 

 its "spirit-chilling green," and hails it as a "cheerless 

 plant, sacred to desolation," while Cowper tells how it — 



Clings to word and stone, 



And hides the ruin that it feeds upon. 



With Barton it is an emblem of persistence in the 

 midst of evanescence. 



It changes not as seasons flow, 

 In changeless, silent course along ; 

 Spring finds it verdant, leaves it so, 

 It outlives Summer's song. 



Autumn, no wan nor russet stain 

 Upon its deathless glory flings ; 

 And Winter o'er it sweeps in vain 

 With tempest on his wings. 



Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine, chose as his 

 device a pyramid, the most indestructible of all buildings, 

 and, clothing it with ivy, placed beneath it the motto 

 Te stante virebo, " While you stand I shall flourish." 



The ivy is intimately associated with the festivities of 

 Christmas, the ease with which it can be garlanded and 

 festooned making it very welcome in the adornment of 

 the home. The black berries of the ivy contrast admirably 

 with the scarlet fruit of the holly and the pale wan berries 

 of the mistletoe. Withers, in his Juvenilia, pictures how 

 at " our joyful'st feast " all hearts are aglow, how " Eache 



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