" There is a stern round tower of other days, 

 Firm as a fortress with its fence of stone, 

 Such as an army's baffled strength delays, 

 Standing with half its battlements alone, 

 And with two thousand years of ivy grown, 

 The garland of eternity, where wave 

 The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown; 

 What was this tower of strength ? within its cave 

 What treasures lay so lock'd, so hid ? A woman's grave." * 



How striking the contrast between this and the glorious song of " The Ivy 

 Green," by Charles Dickens, which the world has accepted in joyfulness for an 

 unfading garland to keep the memory of the writer fresh for ever in the hearts 

 of men ! And yet, though they so differ in tone, they rest upon the same 

 observation and breathe the same train of thought 



" Whole ages have fled and their works decay' d, 



And nations have scatter' d been; 

 But the stout old Ivy shall never fade, 



From its hale and hearty green. 

 The brave old plant in its lonely days 



Shall fatten upon the past ; 

 For the stateliest building man can raise 

 Is the Ivy's food at last. 



Creeping on where time has been, 

 A rare old plant is the Ivy green." 



To dissociate the plant from age and ruin and the still staunch memorials of 

 the past appears to be impossible with modern poets, but their elder brethren 

 knew the plant for its buxomness, its suggestions of conviviality, and its aid as an 

 emblem in the manifestation of religious feeling. In " The Excursion," Words- 

 worth employs it most quaintly in aid of a description of a rustic patriarch 



" He was a peasant of the lowest class : 

 Grey locks profusely round his temples hung 

 In clustering curls, like ivy, which the bite 

 Of winter cannot thin ; the fresh air lodged 

 Within his cheek, as light within a cloud; 

 And he returned our greeting with a smile." 2 



1 " Childe Harold," Canto IV. stanza 99. 



2 "The Excursion," Book VII. 



