FRIENDSHIP. 115 
Thy walls, now trembling to the western gale, 
He clothes them with his spirit-chilling green, 
His dark and favourite ivy, cheerless plant, 
Sacred to desolation ! 
But we love it best as the emblem of friend- 
ship. We rejoice to see the ivied oak, or 
‘aged elm, in ivy bound ae 
and we are sure that none will deny its claim 
to this symbol, since it yields shelter to some 
of our smaller birds. Wordsworth shall tell us 
how they harbour ’mid its foliage ;— 
From behind the roof 
Rose the slim ash and massy sycamore, 
Blending their diverse foliage with the green 
Of ivy, flourishing and thick, that clasped 
The huge round chimneys, harbour of delight 
For wren and redbreast, where they sit and sing 
Their slender ditties when the trees are bare. 
It is a popular error that the ivy is 4 para- 
sitical plant, deriving its support from the tree 
which it environs, when in fact it is sustained 
by its own vital powers ; its roots are fixed in the 
earth, and the sap is conveyed into its branches 
by the same laws which regulate the vital func- 
tions of other members of the vegetable kingdom, 
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