294 SYLVA FLOKIFEItA. 



branches in return for the support it borrows; 

 from hence it is styled the Bond of Love. 



" The woodbines mix in am'rous play, 

 And breath their fragrant lives away." 



In the time of Edward the Third, it appears 

 to have been emblematical of true love, as 

 Chaucer, the father of English poetry, says, 



" And tho that were chapelets, on hir hede, 

 Of fresh wodebind, be such as never were 

 To love untrue, in word, in thought, ne dede ; 

 But ay stedfast ; ne for plesance ne fere, 

 Tho that they shulde hir hertes all to tere, 

 Woud never flit, but ever were stedfast, 

 Till that hir lives there assunder brast." 



This climbing plant always turns from east 

 to west, and so firmly does it hold its sup- 

 po'rter in embrace, that we often see young 

 trees and branches indented like a screw by 

 the .pressure. As the gentle Desdemona 

 clurig to the dark warrior, so have we seen 

 the delicate and supple stalks of the wood- 

 bine endeavour to embrace the trunk of the 

 sturdy oak, and in the bold attempt it is often 

 seen thrown off to perish on the ground, 

 unless taught by humbler shrubs, who seem 

 proud to display the flowery festoons which 

 the monarch of our woods had rejected. 

 So have we ^eeii modern Desdemonas turn 



