Page:Zóphiël; or, The Bride of Seven.djvu/59

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NOTES

TO

CANTO THE FIRST.


(1) "The self-same breeze that passes o'er thy breast."

The remains of Columbus are preserved in the Cathedral at Havana, beneath a monument and bust of very rude sculpture. These stanzas were written on the same coast, about seventy miles distant.


(2) "Madoc, my father's ancient bones repose

Where their bold harps thy country's bards enwreathed."

The well-known and beautiful poem of Dr Robert Southey, which bears the name of the Welch prince, Madoc, renders it unnecessary to give any farther account of him.


(3) "And here the full cerulean passion-flower,

Climbing among the leaves, its mystic symbols hung."

Those who have only seen this flower as a curious exotic in severer climates, can have little idea of the profusion with which it grows in its native realms. It climbs from shrub to shrub, forming natural bowers, sparkling with morning dew, and looking, from its beamy shape, like a beautiful planet.


(4) "That close inclining o'er her, seemed to reck

What 'twas they canopied."

This kind of acacia or mimosa particularly belongs to Abyssinia:

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