308 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



of Europe. For the decoration of places of burial it is 

 well adapted, from the deep and perpetual verdure of its 

 fohage, which, conjointly with its great longevity, may be 

 considered as emblematical of immortality. The custom 

 still exists, in a few places in Ireland and Wales, of 

 carrying twigs of this and other evergreen trees in fune- 

 rals, and throwing them into the grave, with the corpse.* 



" Yet strew 



Upon my dismall grave 



Such offerings as ye have, 



Forsaken Cypresse and Yewe; 



For kinder flowers can have no birth 



Or growth from such unhappy earth." 



Stanly. 



There is a mournful yet sweet and pensive pleasure, in 

 thus adorning these last places of repose with such 

 beautiful, unfading memorials of grief They rob the 

 graveyard or cemetery of its horrors, and by their 

 perpetual garlands of verdure and freshness, inevitably 

 lead the mind from the ideas of death which an ordinary 

 barren churchyard alone inspires, to reflections of a purer 

 and loftier cast; the immortality which awaits the soul 

 when disenthralled of clay. Among the old English poets, 

 we find much of these feelings in favor of decorating the 

 precincts of the grave, and surrounding them with what 

 may be called the poetry of grief. Herrick, one of the 

 sweetest of the number, in some lines addressed to the 

 Cypress and Yew, says : 



" Bothe of ye have 

 Relation to the grave ; 

 And where 

 The funeral trump sounds, you are there. 



• Encyclopaedia of Plants, 849. 



