68 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



Chasing, with eager hands and eyes, 

 The beautiful blue damsel-flies, 

 That flutter'd round the jasmine stems 

 Like winged flow'rs or flying gems." 



Cowper, who better understood the garden than any English 

 poet, Shakespeare alone excepted, gives us a photograph of 

 the plant in four short lines 



"The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, 

 The deep dark green of whose un varnish' d leaf 

 Makes more conspicuous and illumines more 

 The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars." 



