THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
45 
WILD BRIER, SWEET BRIER ROSE, or EGLANTINE. 
Poetry. 
This is, par excellence, the flower of the poets. Hear 
them. 
“ A sweeter spot of earth was never found. 
I looked and looked, and still with new delight, 
Such joy my soul, such pleasures filled my sight. 
And the fresh eglantine exhaled a breath 
Whose odors were of power to raise from death.” 
Dryden, from Chaucer. 
Spenser tells us of an arbor 
“ Through which the fragrant eglantine did spred 
His prickling arms, entrayld with roses red, 
Which daintie odours round about them threw.” 
“ Its sides I’ll plant with dew-sweet eglantine.” 
Keats. 
“ Grateful eglantine regales the smell.” 
Cowper 
“ Here eglantine embalms the air.” 
Scott. 
“ A brier rose, whose buds 
Yield fragrant harvest for the honey bee.” 
“ The chestnut flowers are past, 
The crowning glories of the hawthorn fail, 
But arches of sweet eglantine are cast 
From every hedge.” 
Mrs. Hemans. 
“ The wild-brier rose, a fragrant cup 
To hold the morning’s tear.” 
Miss Landon. 
In Cymbeline we find Arviragus saying that the grave 
of Fidele, while he lives there, shall not lack 
“ The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 
Outsweetened not thy breath.” 
