Woodbine, or Honeysuckle.... Affection.
Reading edition
This elegant, climbing shrub at once delights the eye and gratifies the smell, by the exquisite fragrance of its blossoms; while it confers on those humble dwellings in the rural districts of England and America, a character of cheerfulness unknown in other countries. It begins to flower in May, and puts forth its blossoms until the end of summer. It is chosen as the emblem of affection, from its clinging to trees and lattices with all the ardour and constancy of a weak, confiding woman, clinging to one of the stronger, sterner sex, in prosperity and in adversity.
Copious of flowers, the woodbine pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks With never-cloying odours, early and late. Cowper.
Sister, sister, what dost thou twine? I am weaving a wreath of the wild Woodbine; I have streaked it without like the sunset hue, And silvered it white with the morning dew: And there is not a perfume which on the breeze blows From the lips of the Pink or the mouth of the Rose, That’s sweeter than mine—that’s sweeter than mine: I have mingled them all in my wild Woodbine. Miller.
A Honeysuckle, on the sunny side, Hung round the lattices its fragrant trumpets. Miss Landon.
Ah! could you look into my heart, And watch your image there! You would own the sunny loveliness Affection makes it wear. Mrs. Osgood.
The pensive soul with ardent thirsting turns To heaven and earth to seek its fill of love. MacKellar.
Oh! there is one affection which no stain Of earth can ever darken;—when two find, The softer and the manlier, that a chain Of kindred taste has fastened mind to mind. ’Tis an attraction from all sense refined; The good can only know it; ’tis not blind, As love is unto baseness; its desire Is but with hands entwined to lift our being higher. Percival.