900 CHEIHANTHUS. fcLASs xv. order ii. 



proof against the work of time and misfortunes ; and as the poet Bernard 

 Barton says — 



" To me thy site disconsolate, 



On turret wall or tower. 

 Makes thee appear misfortune's mate 

 And desolation's dower. 



Thou asks't no kindly cultured soil, 



Thy natal bed to be, 

 Thou need'st not man's officious toil, 



To plant or water thee. 



Sown by the winds thou meekly rearest, 



On ruin's crumbling crest, 

 Tby fragile form, and then appearest 



In smiling beauty drest. 



Then in thy bleak and earthless bed, 



Thou bravest the tempests strife, 

 And giv'st what else were cold and dead, 



A lingering glow of life." 



This habit of the plant being observed by minstrels and troubadours 

 of the days gone by, they carried a branch of the Wallflower in their 

 coat, as the emblem of an affection, which is proof against time and 

 misfortune. Perhaps no one has paid a more beautiful tribute to a 

 flower than Moir has to the Wallflower, a part of whose verses we 

 cannot refrain from quoting from Blackwood's Magazine: — 



« The Wallflower, the Wallflower ! 



How beautiful it blooms ! 

 It gleams above the ruined tower. 



Like sunlight over tombs ; 

 It sheds a halo of repose, 



Around the wrecks of time ; 

 To beauty give the flaunting Rose — 



The Wallflower is sublime. 



Flower of the solitary place! 



Gray ruin's golden crown, 

 That lendest melancholy grace, 



To haunts of old renown ; 

 Thou mantlest e'er the battlement, 



By strife or storm decay'd ; 

 And fillest up each envious rent, 



Time's canker-tooth hath made. 



* * * « 



Rich is the Pink, the Lily gay — 



The Rose is summer's guest; 

 Bland are thy charms when these decay. 



Of flowers first, last, and best ! 

 There may be gaudier in the bower. 



And statelier on the tree — 

 But Wallflower, loved Wallflower, 



Thou art the flower for me !" 



