68 
THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
Though shining there in deathless green, 
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, 
August 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 Colchis, owed its origin to some drops of the magic 
