152 ABOUT MOSSES AND LICHENS. [CHAP. ix. 



simplest, sweetest offices of grace ? They will not be 

 gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love-token ; 

 but of these the wild bird will make its nest, and the 

 wearied child its pillow. 



" And, as they are the earth's first mercy, so they 

 are its last gift to us. When all other service is vain, 

 from plant and tree, the soft mosses and grey lichen 

 take up their watch by the headstone. The woods, 

 the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their 

 parts for a time, but these do service for ever. Trees 

 for the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, 

 corn for the granary, moss for the grave. 



"Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they 

 are the most honoured of the earth-children. Un- 

 fading as motionless, the worm frets them not, and 

 the autumn wastes them not. Strong in lowliness, 

 they neither blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To 

 them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the 

 weaving of the dark eternal tapestries of the hills ; to 

 them, slow-pencilled, iris-eyed, the tender framing of 

 their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the 

 unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance; 

 and while the winds of departing spring scatter the 

 white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and sum- 

 mer dims on the parched meadow the drooping of its 

 cowslip-gold far above, among the mountains, the 

 silver lichen-spots rest, star-like, on the stone; and 

 the gathering orange stain upon the edge of yonder 

 western peak reflects the sunset of a thousand years." 



