26 



THE IVY, 



" Its verdure trails the Ivy shoot 

 Along the ground from root to root ; 

 Or climbing high, with "'random maze, 

 O'er elm, and ash, and alder strays ; 

 And round each trunk a network weaves 

 Fantastic, and each bough with leaves 

 Of countless shapes entwines, and studs 

 With pale green blooms and half- form' d buds. 

 The Ivy, of our native flowers 

 That now among the latest pours 

 Its pale green bloom, and ripes its seed 

 Of black and shining balls to feed, 

 Impervious to the winter's frost, 



The little birds' afflicted host ; 



The Ivy, fairest plant to seize, 



And promptest, on the neighbouring trees, 



O'er bole and branch, with leaves that shine 



All glossy bright, tenacious twine, 



And the else naked woodland scene 



Clothe with a raiment freeh and green. 



Fair is that Ivy twine to see ! 



But as ye love the goodly tree, 



rend away the clasping wreath, 



'Twill pay the kind support with death. 



Ah, that beneath such semblance fair 



Should lurk conceal'd such deadly snare !" 



The ivy has a vast geographical range ; it grows in sun and shade, and in 

 every kind of soil. Nevertheless, it has its peculiarities, or, as we might say, its 

 " likes and dislikes." In the heavy clay-lands of the London basin it is scarce as a 

 wild plant, though plentiful as a subject of cultivation. On the limestones of 

 Derbyshire and North Wales, and, indeed, almost everywhere on the older lime- 

 stone and sandstone formations, it abounds. In the woods it is usually of a deep 

 green hue, and rarely variegated ; but when it has rioted for years on castle walls 

 it breaks into splendid colours, presenting sheets of the richest golden leafage, or 

 delicate tones of grey, or dottings of snow white upon a general surface of grass 

 green. It is a limestone plant and a woodland plant, but given to vagrancy, and 

 thriving under the most diverse range of circumstances. Euripedes frequently 

 alludes to it as a sylvan plant, as in " The Virgin Dames " 



" The darksome, ivy-vested woods, 



The woods that wave o'er Ida's brow, 

 Down whose steep sides the cool translucent floods 

 In mazy channels flow." * 



In his enumeration of the vegetables that characterise various aspects and 



soils, Yirgil says 



" The cold ground is difficult to know ; 

 Yet this the plants, that prosper there, will show 

 Black ivy, pitch trees, and the baleful yew." 2 



It is, however, far less characteristic of *' cold ground " than of a moist air, 

 and it is the atmospheric humidity much more than any peculiar quality of the 



1 Potter's translation, 11651168. 



2 Dryden's translation, " Georgics," II. 34?. 



