138 FLORAL CEREMONIES. 
After the feast of Whitsuntide, says Von Teitz, the 
young Russian maidens seek the hanks of the Neva, and 
fling in its waters wreaths of flowers. These are tokens 
of affection to absent friends. Our own modern Anacreon 
thus addresses the river in which Me suppositious wreaths 
are cast:— 
Flow on, thou shining river, 
But ere thou reach the sea, 
. Seek Ella’s bow’?,and give her 
The wreaths I fling o’er thee : 
And tell her thus :—If she’ll be mine 
The current of our lives shall be. 
With joys along their course to shine 
Like those sweet flowers on thee. 
But if in wandering thither. 
Thou find she mocks thy pray’r. 
Then leave those wreaths to wither 
Upon the cold bank there. 
And tell her thus :—When youth is o’er 
Her lone and loveless charms shall be 
Thrown by-upon life’s weedy shore. 
Like those sweet flowers from thee ! 
