he lasting nature
of its blossoms. Accordingly, Milton crowns with amaranth the angelic
multitude assembled before the Deity:--

"To the ground,
With solemn adoration, down they cast
Their crowns, inwove with amaranth and gold.
Immortal amaranth, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon, for man's offence,
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows
And flowers aloft, shading the font of life," &c.

And in some parts of the Continent churches are adorned at
Christmas-tide with the amaranth, as a symbol "of that immortality to
which their faith bids them look."

Grass, from its many beneficial qualities, has been made the emblem of
usefulness; and the ivy, from its persistent habit of clinging to the
heaviest support, has been universally adopted as the symbol of
confiding love and fidelity. Growing rapidly, it iron clasps:--

"The fissured stone with its entwining arms,
And embowers with leaves for ever green,
And berries dark."

According to a Cornish tradition, the beautiful Iseult, unable to endure
the loss of her betrothed--the brave Tristran--died of a broken heart,
and was buried in the same church, but, by order of the king, the two
graves were placed at a distance from each other. Soon, however, there
burst forth from the tomb of Tristran a branch of ivy, and another from
the grave of Iseult; these shoots gradually growing upwards, until at
last the lovers, represented by the clinging ivy, were again united
beneath the vaulted roof of heaven.[2]

Then, again, the cypress, in floral language, denotes mourning; and, as
an emblem of woe, may be traced to the familiar classical myth of
Cyparissus, who, sorrow-stricken at having skin his favourite stag, was
transformed into a cypress tree. Its ominous and sad character is the
subject of constant allusion, Virgil having introduced it into the
funeral rites of his heroes. Shelley speaks of the unwept youth whom no
mourning maidens decked,

"With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,
The love-couch of his everlasting sleep."

And Byron describes the cypress as,

"Dark tree! still sad when other's grief is fled,
The only constant mourner o'er the dead."

The laurel, used for classic wreaths, has long been regarded
emblematical of renown, and Tasso thus addresses a laurel leaf in the
hair of his mistress:--

"O glad triumphant bough,
That now adornes