HA W THORN. 
[Hope.) 
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 pro¬ 
pitious. Its flowering branches were borne aloft at their 
marriages, 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 denoting the donor’s desire to receive from 
the object of his affection that token of love denominated 
a kiss. 
Ronsard—sometimes styled the French Chaucer— 
wrote a beautiful address to the hawthorn, thus faithfully 
rendered: 
“Fair hawthorn flowering. 
With green shade bowering 
Along this lovely shore ; 
To thy foot around 
With his long arms wound 
A wild vine has mantled thee o’er, 
“ In armies twain, 
Red ants have ta’en 
Their fortress beneath thy stock; 
And in clefts of thy trunk 
Tiny bees have sunk 
A cell where honey they lock. 
