Why this flower is now called so
    List sweet maids and you shall know
    Understand this firstling was
    Once a brisk and bonny lass
    Kept as close as Danae was
    Who a sprightly springal loved,
    And to have it fully proved,
    Up she got upon a wall
    Tempting down to slide withal,
    But the silken twist untied,
    So she fell, and bruised and died
    Love in pity of the deed
    And her loving, luckless speed,
    Turned her to the plant we call
    Now, ‘The Flower of the Wall’

The wall-flower is the emblem of fidelity in misfortune, because it attaches itself to fallen towers and gives a grace to ruin.  David Moir (the Delta of Blackwood’s Magazine) has a poem on this flower.  I must give one stanza of it.

    In the season of the tulip cup
    When blossoms clothe the trees,
    How sweet to throw the lattice up
    And scent thee on the breeze;
    The butterfly is then abroad,
    The bee is on the wing,
    And on the hawthorn by the road
    The linnets sit and sing.

Lord Bacon observes that wall-flowers are very delightful when set under the parlour window or a lower chamber window.  They are delightful, I think, any where.

THE JESSAMINE.

    The Jessamine, with which the Queen of flowers,
    To charm her god[074] adorns his favorite bowers,
    Which brides, by the plain hand of neatness dressed—­
    Unenvied rivals!—­wear upon their breast;
    Sweet as the incense of the morn, and chaste
    As the pure zone which circles Dian’s waist.

Churchill.

The elegant and fragrant JESSAMINE, or Jasmine, (Jasmimum Officinale) with its “bright profusion of scattered stars,” is said to have passed from East to West.  It was originally a native of Hindustan, but it is now to be found in every clime, and is a favorite in all.  There are many varieties of it in Europe.  In Italy it is woven into bridal wreaths and is used on all festive occasions.  There is a proverbial saying there, that she who is worthy of being decorated with jessamine is rich enough for any husband.  Its first introduction into that sunny land is thus told.  A certain Duke of Tuscany, the first possessor of a plant of this tribe, wished to preserve it as an unique, and forbade his gardener to give away a single sprig of it.  But the gardener was a more faithful lover than servant and was more willing to please a young mistress than an old master.  He presented the young girl with a branch of jessamine on her birth-day.  She planted it in the ground; it took root, and grew and blossomed.  She multiplied the plant by cuttings, and by the sale of these realized a little fortune, which her lover received as her marriage dowry.

In England the bride wears a coronet of intermingled orange blossom and jessamine.  Orange flowers indicate chastity, and the jessamine, elegance and grace.