126 
FLORAL POESY. 
ORANGE-BLOSSOM. 
(Your purity equals your loveliness.) 
O RANGE-BLOSSOM is generally deemed typical of 
chastity. The practice of brides wearing a wreath 
of it on their wedding-day, though still retained in 
some countries, is not so fashionable here as formerly. 
In his “Ode to Memory,” Tennyson alludes to the 
custom of using these blossoms at nuptials thus : 
“ Like a bird of old 
In triumph led, 
With music and sweet showers 
Of festal flowers, 
Unto the dwelling she must sway.” 
THE ORANGE-BLOSSOM. 
Just then, beneath some orange-trees. 
Whose fruit and blossoms in the breeze 
Were wantoning together, free, 
Like age at play with infancy. 
THE ORANGE-TREE. 
SPENSER. 
Next thereunto did grow a goodly tree. 
With branches broad dispread and body great, 
Clothed with leaves, that none the wood might see, 
And laden all with fruit, as thick as thick might be. 
