68 
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
Though shining there in deathless grecu, 
Triumphally thy boughs might wave. 
Better thou lov’st the silent scene 
Around the victor’s grave : 
Urn and sculpture half divine 
Yield their place to thine. 
The cold halls of the regal dead, 
Where lone the Italian sunbeams dwell. 
Where hollow sounds the lightest tread — 
Ivy they know thee well! 
And far above the festal vine 
Thou wav’st where once proud banners hung, 
Where mouldering turrets crest the Rhine, 
The Rhine, still fresh and young ! 
Tower and rampart o’er the Rhine, 
Ivy ! all are thine ! 
High from the fields of air look down 
Those eyries of a vanished race* 
Where harp, and battle, and renown 
Have passed and left no trace. 
But thou art there ! serenely bright, 
Meeting the mountain storms With bloom. 
Thou that wilt climb the loftiest height, 
Or crown the lowliest tomb. 
Ivy, Ivy ! all are thine -*■ 
Palace, hearth* and shrine ! 
’Tis still the same; our pilgrim tread 
O’er classic plains, through deserts free. 
On the mute path of ages fled, 
Still meets decay and thee. 
And still let man his fabrics rear, 
A ugust in beauty, stern in power, — 
Days pass — thou * Ivy never sere; ’ 
And thou shalt have thy dower. 
All are thine, or must be thine — 
Temple, pillar, shrine ! ” 
MEADOW SAFFRON (Colchicum autumnalis). My best days 
are past. 
The ancients believed that this plant, from the fields 
of Colc-his, owed its origin to some drops of the magic 
