CYTISUS. 137 



" Cruel love is no more to be satisfied with tears than grass with the 

 streams, the bees with cytisus, or goats with leaves." 



Many persons suppose the Cytisus of the ancients to be 

 the Cytisus Maranthae, which was removed by Tournefort 

 into another genus, and is now called Tree Medick, or 

 Moon Trefoil (Medicago Arborea). This shrub abounds 

 in the islands of the Archipelago: the Turks make the 

 handles of their sabres of it, and the monks of Patmos 

 their beads. It does not thrive well in this country. 



The bright blossoms of the Laburnum have not escaped 

 the attention of our poets. Mr. Keats, in two distinct 

 passages of his earliest poetry, each representing the flowery 

 nook most beautiful to his fancy, gives a place to the 

 burnum: 



" A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them ; 

 Ah, sure no tasteful nook would be without them : 

 And let a lush laburnum oversweep them, 

 And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them 

 Moist, cool, and green ; and shade the violets, 

 That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. 

 * # # * # 



Where the dark-leaved laburnum's drooping clusters 

 Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres, 

 And intertwined the cassia's arms unite 

 With its own drooping buds, but very white." 



" ** Laburnum, rich 

 In streaming gold." 



COWPER'S TASK. 



It is curious to observe how some plants appear to be 

 compounded of others. Thus the Camellia Japonica has 

 been noticed as resembling a bay-tree with roses; the 

 arbutus is like another species of bay, yielding straw- 

 berries ; and the Laburnum seems like a tree made up of 

 large trefoil and garlands of yellow peas. The Geranium 

 kind seems to delight in this species of mimicry. 



When the Laburnum tree is so situated as to be shaded 

 from the scorching suns of noon, it thrives so much better as 

 to appear, to a superficial observer, a tree of a different kind. 



