THE BROOM. 17 



Darwin shews where 



" Sweet blooms genista in the myrtle shades." 



Coleridge wanders 



"Down 



Amid the fragrance of the yellow broom ; 

 While o'er our heads the weeping beech-tree stream'd 

 Its branches, arching like a fountain shower." 



And the northern ballad sweeter than all in its 

 strong feeling of ho f me declares, 



" More pleasant far to me the broom 



That blows sae fair on Cowden Knowes,* 

 For sure so sweet, so soft, a bloom, 

 Elsewhere there never grows." 



Again, the old Welsh bard, Dafydd ap Gwillym, in 

 his Banadl Iwyn^ dwells lovingly on the beauties 

 of the golden copse, in the poem commencing ; 



" Y fun well ei Uun a'i lliw 

 Na'r iarlles wn o'r eurlliw ;" 



here presented to the reader in the English ver- 

 sion of Mr. A. Johnes, which will, at least, convey 

 to him an idea of its sentiments. 



* Golden Knolls ; Cowden, being, as Dr. Johnston, of Ber- 

 wick-on-Tweed, tells us, a corruption of Gowden, or Golden ; 

 a derivation which appears more probable, when viewed by 

 the light of the above stanza, than that given by Mr. Robert 

 Chambers, of Coldeen, a wooded height ; though it is to be 

 remembered that it was formerly spelt Koldenknowys. See 

 " Botany of the Eastern Borders." 



f " The broom grove." This poet died about the year 1400. 



