POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
207 
This plant is likewise often planted near or 
upon graves, to which practice Kirk White thus 
mournfully refers: 
“Come, funeral flower! who lovest to dwell 
With the pale corse in lonely tomb, 
And throw across the desert gloom 
A sweet decaying smell; 
Come, press hay lips, and lie with me 
Beneath the lowly alder-tree, 
And we will sleep a pleasant sleep, 
And not a care shall dare intrude, 
To break the marble solitude, 
So peaceful and so deep.” 
In the days of yore, Rosemary was in great 
request at Christmas-tide for decorative pur¬ 
poses: the roast beef was crested with bays and 
rosemary; the flaming tankards were flavored 
with sprigs of it, and the liquor stirred with it, in 
order, as our ancestors fancied, to improve its 
flavor. 
It was considered very ornamental, and its 
silvery foliage was a favorite decoration of the 
garden walls. In Queen Elizabeth’s time it 
grew all over the walls of the gardens at Hamp¬ 
ton Court Palace; but now is banished from the 
flower to the kitchen garden, and there, indeed, 
lingers half neglected. 
