WILLOW. 279 



In old times those who sat down by the waters of Babylon, 

 and who wept when they remembered Zion, hanged their 

 harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. And still 

 beside the majestic stream of the Euphrates, wandering in 

 its solitary course, like an exiled monarch amid the silent 

 ruins of his desolated kingdom, grow grey osier willows, 

 on banks hoary with reeds, or amid ruined embankments, 

 divided and subdivided again and again, over the apparently 

 interminable expanse of wide-spreading morasses, ancient 

 foundations, and chains of undulating heaps. 



To the eye, therefore, of the historian, three historic 

 epochs are inscribed on the bark of the willow. The first 

 has respect to the carrying away of the captive Jews to 

 Babylon, when their daughters refused to sing the songs of 

 their fatherland to those who had made their cities waste 

 and brought their sanctuaries into desolation ; the second 

 is associated with the ancient Britons, when woad-dyed 

 chieftains presided over your barbaric ancestors, and Druidic 

 superstitions held sway in the minds of men ; and lastly, 



