34 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
has awoke from, her slumber, and is shaking open 
the unblown buds, which have gathered around her 
during her long winter’s sleep. Dear was this 
modest and beautiful flower to the hearts of our 
elder poets, and from its sweetness, buried amid the 
broad green leaves, they drew forth many an exqui¬ 
site image, and in it found the emblems of hidden 
Virtue, and neglected Modesty, and unchanging 
Love. 
Stepping further into Summer, comes the star- 
white Jasmine,—that sweet perfumer of the night, 
which only throws out its full fragrance when its 
sister stars are keeping watch in the sky; as if 
when the song of the nightingale no longer cheered 
the darkness, it sent forth its silent aroma upon the 
listening air. Many a happy home does it garland, 
and peeps in at many a forbidden lattice, where Love 
and Beauty repose. Little did the proud courtiers 
and stately dames of Queen Elizabeth’s day dream 
that this sweet-scented creeper (a sprig of which 
seemed to make the haughty, haughtier still) would 
one day become so common as to cluster around, and 
embower, thousands of humble English cottages,—a 
degradation, which could they but have witnessed, 
would almost have made every plait of their starched 
ruffs bristle up, like “ quills upon the fretful porcu¬ 
pine.” Beautiful are its long, drooping, dark-green 
shoots, trailing around the trellis-work of a doorway ; 
