FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
119 
the Elizabethan era, makes this playful allusion 
in his Epithalamium :— 
44 Now busie maydens, strew sweet flowres, 
Much like our bride in virgin state,— 
Now fresh, then prest, soone dying; 
The death is sweet, and must be yours, 
Time goes on crutches till that date, 
Birds fledged must needes be flying/' 
Christopher Brooke. 
Then again, in the play of “the Two Noble 
Kinsmen,” we find a very sweet bridal-song, 
beginning thus: — 
“ Roses, their sharp spines being gone, 
Not royal in their smells alone, 
But in their hue; 
Maiden-pinks, of odors faint, 
Daisies, smell-less, yet most quaint, 
And sweet thyme true. 
44 Primrose, first-born child of ver, 
Merry spring-time’s harbinger, 
With her bells dim; 
Oxlips, in their cradles growing, 
Marigolds on death-beds blowing. 
Lark-heels trim. 
