54 
FLORAL POESY. 
’Tis sweet to love the heap of gold, and hng it to our 
breast,— 
To trust it as the guiding star and anchor of our rest. 
But such devotion will not serve—however strong the 
zeal— 
To overthrow the altar where our childhood loved to 
kneel. 
Some bitter moment shall o’ercast the sun of wealth 
and power. 
And then proud man would fain go back to worship 
bird and flower. 
HAWTHORN. 
[Hope .) 
B Y the Greeks the hawthorn was deemed one of the 
fortunate trees. The Romans accounted it a 
symbol of marriage because it was carried at the rape 
of the Sabines ; it was ever after considered propitious. 
Its flowering branches were borne aloft at their mar¬ 
riages, and the newly-wedded pair were even lighted to 
the nuptial chamber with torches of its wood. 
The Turks regard the presentation of a branch of 
hawthorn as donating the donor’s desire to receive from 
the object of his affection that token of love denomi¬ 
nated a kiss. 
Ronsard—sometimes styled the French Chaucer— 
wrote a beautiful address to the hawthorn, thus faith¬ 
fully rendered : 
“ Fair hawthorn flowering. 
With green shade boweriug 
