"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 adornest conquering chiefs, and now
Clippest the bows of over-ruling kings
From victory to victory.
Thus climbing on through all the heights of story,
From worth to worth, and glory unto glory,
To finish all, O gentle and royal tree,
Thou reignest now upon that flourishing head,
At whose triumphant eyes love and our souls are led."
Like the rose, the myrtle is the emblem of love, having been dedicated by the Greeks and Romans to Venus, in the vicinity of whose temples myrtle-groves were planted; hence, from time immemorial,
"Sacred to Venus is the myrtle shade."
This will explain its frequent use in bridal ceremonies on the Continent, and its employment for the wedding wreath of the Jewish damsel. Herrick, mindful of its associations, thus apostrophises Venus:—
"Goddess, I do love a girl,
Ruby lipp'd and toothed like pearl;
If so be I may but prove
Lucky in this maid I love,
I will promise there shall be
Myrtles offered up to thee."
To the same goddess was dedicated the rose, and its world-wide reputation as "the flower of love," in which character it has been extolled by poets in ancient and modern times, needs no more than reference here.