222 WILD FLOWEKS. 



Fresh as in youth, its balmy breath 

 Diffuses odour even in death : " 



and terms it 



* * " The flower of flowers 

 Whose breath perfumes Olympus' bowers;" 



exclaiming : 



* " Showers of roses bring, 

 And shed them round me while I sing." 



He also rapturously addresses it in the lines so well 

 known as rendered by Moore, in the forty-fourth 

 ode ; but of which, however, the old English trans- 

 lation gives a far more musical, even though it be 

 a less classical, version : 



" The rose is the honour and beautie of floures, 

 The rose is the care and the loue of the springe, 

 The rose is the pleasure of th' heavenly powers, 

 The boy of faire Yenus, Cythera's darlinge 

 Dothe wrap his head rounde with garlands of rose, 

 "When to the dance of the graces he goes." 



This was a translation made in an age when, 



" With rose and swete flores 

 Was strawed halles and bouris :" 



when, as old Thomas Campion sings : * 



* * " Flora robbed her bowers 

 To befriend this place with flowers ; 



Strow about ! strow about ! 



Divers, divers flowers affect, 

 For some private dear respect ; 



Strow about ! strow about ! 



* In " The Night and the Hours," a masque. 



