The townspeople had
not then objected to its intrusion, perhaps because, being always green,
it was considered to be an emblem of everlasting life--or was it because
in Roman mythology it was sacred to Bacchus, the God of Wine? In
Egyptian mythology the ivy was sacred to Osiris, the Judge of the Dead
and potentate of the kingdom of ghosts; but in our minds it was
associated with our old friend Charles Dickens, who had died in the
previous year, and whom we had once heard reading selections from his
own writings in his own inimitable way. His description of the ivy is
well worth recording--not that he was a poet, but he once wrote a song
for Charles Russell to sing, entitled "The Ivy Green ":
Oh! a dainty plant is the ivy green.
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are its meals, I ween;
In its cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim,
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a dainty meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings.
And a staunch old heart hath he:
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings.
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