Sonnet: When we that wore the myrtle wear the dust.

Nor you, ye poor, of lettered scorn complain: To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain; O'ercome by labour and bowed down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?

" "No, my boy, the bird is not named from that sort of creeping flowering myrtle; his name comes from a Latin word for 'bayberry,' because the bird feeds upon its fruit, as Rap told you.

Here still grows the myrtle with pierced leaves, as I am told.

"Yes," said he, with a sigh, "I will place the myrtle on your brow, and God grant it may not turn to a crown of thorns!

In Prussia it is regarded as ominous for a bride to plant myrtle, although in this country it has the reputation of being a lucky plant.

At last, almost discouraged, he attacks the pimento-myrtle; he recommences his customary efforts of rubbing.

Ceres served us with bread, and Bacchus with wine; Hercules handed about the flesh, Venus scattered myrtles, and Neptune brought us fish; not to mention that I got slyly a little nectar and ambrosia, for my friend Ganymede, out of good- nature, if he saw Jove looking another way, would frequently throw me in a cup or two.

Here smiling Loves and Bacchanals appear, The Julian star, and great Augustus here: The Doves, that round the infant Poet spread Myrtles and bays, hang hov'ring o'er his head.

He saw a small, brick- paved yard, in which trim myrtles and flowering plants stood about in freshly ochred pots, and, opening the door a little wider, he slipped in and closed it behind him.

In its general appearance, and the form of its leaf, it resembles the myrtle.

"Without thee, ah! wretched me, the lillies lose their whiteness, the roses become pallid, the hyacinth forgets to blush neither the myrtle nor the laurel retains its odours.