38 THE WEEPING WILLOW. 



garland for disappointed lovers, and by the employment 

 of it in burial-grounds and in funereal paintings. We 

 remember it in sacred history, associating it with the 

 rivers of Babylon and with the tears of the children of 

 Israel, who sat down under the shade of this tree and 

 hung their harps upon its branches. It is distinguished 

 by the graceful beauty of its outlines, its light green 

 delicate foliage, its sorrowing attitude, and its flowing 

 drapery. 



Hence the "Weeping Willow never fails to please the 

 sight even of the most insensible observer. Whether we 

 see it waving its long branches over some pleasure- 

 ground, overshadowing the gravel- walk and the flower gar- 

 den, or watching over a tomb in the graveyard, where the 

 warm hues of its foliage yield cheerfulness to the scenes 

 of mourning, or trailing its floating branches, like the 

 tresses of a Naiad, over some silvery lake or stream, it is 

 in all cases a beautiful object, always poetical, always pic- 

 turesque, and serves by its alliance with what is hal- 

 lowed in romance to bind us more closely to nature. 



It is not easy to imagine anything of this character 

 more beautiful than the spray of the Weeping Willow. 

 Indeed, there is no other tree that is comparable with it 

 in this respect. The American elm displays a more 

 graceful bend of all the branches that form its hemispher- 

 ical head ; and there are several weeping birches which 

 are very picturesque when standing by a natural foun- 

 tain on some green hillside. The river maple is also a 

 theme of constant admiration, from the graceful flow of 

 its long branches that droop perpendicularly when laden 

 with foliage, but partly resume their erect position in 

 winter, when denuded. But the style of all these trees 

 differs entirely from that of the Weeping Willow, which 

 in its peculiar form of beauty is unrivalled in the whole 

 vegetable kingdom. 



