340 WILD FLOWERS. 



despite the authority of the poet in an analagous 

 case to take away half its beauty, by depriving 

 it of an appellation by which it has been so long 

 known. I think that it will not be necessary to 

 offer any description of this most beautiful plant ; 

 which wreathes in the most graceful festoons over 

 our hedgerows, or around the gooseberry and cur- 

 rant-bushes in our gardens, opening its large tender 

 white or rose-tinted blossoms in the bright sunshine; 

 or gathering their convolute folds together when a 

 threatening rain-cloud obscures his beams, as if to 

 husband its beauties till the return of fair weather 

 after the summer shower. Instead, therefore, of 

 presenting a melancholy wreck after the storm, or 

 hanging in unsightly decay on the shrubs from 

 which, in brighter hours, it received support, it 

 opens its flowers as if they were merely refreshed 

 by the storm which has destroyed blossoms of a 

 far less tender description. How often, in watch- 

 ing the re-opening of these fair blossoms, are the 

 lines of the poet recalled to the memory: 



" Summer showers, that fall above 

 Fainting blossoms, leave with them 

 Freshened leaf, and straightened stem ; 

 Sunshine oft doth give again 

 Bloom the bitter storm hath ta'en ; 

 And this human love of ours, 

 To the world's poor faded flowers, 

 May be found as dear a boon 

 As God's blessed rain and sun, 

 To restore their native hue 

 And their native fragrance too :" 



lines which recall those of the older Italian poet : 



