JESSAMINE. 239 



" From my summer alcove, which the stars this morn 



With lucid pearls o'erspread, 

 I have gathered these jessamines thus to adorn 



With a wreath thy graceful head. 

 From thy bosom and mouth they, as flowers, ere death, 

 Ask a purer white, and a sweeter breath. 



Their blossoms, a host of bees, alarmed, 



Watched o'er on jealous wing; 

 Hoarse trumpeters seemed they all, and armed, 



Each bee with a diamond sting : 

 I tore them away, but each flower I tore 

 Has cost me a wound which smarteth sore. 



Now, as I these jessamine flowers entwine, 



A gift for thy fragrant hair, 

 I must have from those honey-sweet lips of thine 



A kiss for each sting I bear : 

 It is just that the blooms I bring thee home 

 Be repaid by sweets from the golden comb." 



Translated by J. H. WIFFEN. 



The Common White Jessamine is an exceedingly elegant 

 plant for training over a wall, where that support can be 

 allowed, and after its first infancy will bear our winters 

 very well. It is a delicate and fragrant shrub, not sur- 

 passed in beauty by any of the species. It is of this Cowper 

 speaks in the following passage : 



" The jasmine throwing wide her elegant sweets, 

 The deep dark green of whose unvarnished leaf 

 Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more, 

 The bright profusion of her scattered stars." 



The Hindoos, who use odoriferous flowers in their sa- 

 crifices, particularly value the Jessamine for this purpose, 

 and the flower which they call Zambuk. 



Jessamine is one of the shrubs of which Milton forms the 

 bower of Adam and Eve in Paradise : 



<c Thus talking, hand in hand alone they pass'd 

 On to their blissful bower : it was a place 



