BBOOM. 79 



" Where yon brown hazels pendent catkins bear, 

 And prickly furze unfolds its blossoms fair ; 

 The vagrant artist oft at eve reclines, 

 And broom's green shoots in besoms neat combines." 



SCOTT of Am well. 



In the north of Great Britain it is used for thatching 

 cottages, corn, and hay-ricks, and making fences. In some 

 parts of Scotland, where coals and wood are scarce, whole 

 fields are sown with it for fuel. 



But the Scotch have long been aware of the poetry as 

 well as the utility of this beautiful shrub. The burden of 

 one of their most popular songs is well known : 



" O the broom, the bonny bonny broom, 



The broom of the Cowden-knows ; 

 For sure so soft, so sweet a bloom 

 Elsewhere there never grows." 



Burns lauds it, too, in one of his songs, written to an 

 Irish air, which was a great favourite with him, called the 

 Humours of Glen : 



" Their groves of sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, 

 Where bright beaming summers exalt the perfume ; 

 Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan, 

 Wi', the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom. 



" Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, 



Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen ; 

 For there lightly tripping amang the sweet flowers, 

 A listening the linnet, oft wanders my Jean." 



" 'Twas that delightful season, when the broom 

 Full-flowered, and visible on every steep, 

 Along the copses runs in veins of gold." 



WORDSWORTH'S POEMS, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 265. 



Thomson speaks of it as a favourite food of kine. It 

 flowers in May and June. 



" Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloyed, 

 Her blossoms." 



COWPER'S TASK. 



