CVPRESS. 
190 
“ And oft the living, by affection led, 
Were wont to walk in spirit with their dead, 
Where no dark cypress cast a doleful gloom, 
Nor blighting yew shed poison o’er the tomb ; 
But, white and red with intermingling flowers, 
Green myrtle fenced it, and beyond their bound 
Ran the clear rill with ever-murmuring sound. ” 
Shelley does not overlook the melancholy customs connected 
with the cypress, and makes us dread the fate of that unwept, 
lovely youth whom no mourning maidens decked 
“With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath, 
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep. ” 
Last, but not least of the tuneful quire who hang their v otive 
wreaths upon the dark urn of the buried Past, is Eliza Cook, 
and in her thoroughly symbolic poem of “The Wreaths,” she 
enters thus poetically into the typical spirit of this funereal 
plant: 
“Who wears the cypress, dark and drear? 
The one who is shedding the mourner’s tear: 
The gloomy branch for ever twines 
Round foreheads graved with Sorrow’s lines. 
’T is the type of a sad and lonely heart, 
That hath seen its dearest hopes depart. 
Oh ! who can like the chaplet band 
That is wove by Melancholy’s hand?” 
By the Greeks and Romans the cypress was consecrated to 
the Fates, the Furies, to Pluto and Proserpine, and was planted 
by them around graves. 
The tree still retains its melancholy interest, and as a ceme¬ 
tery decoration is yet used in all countries pretending to civiliza¬ 
tion. In Mahommedan “ Cities of the Dead,” as they poetically 
style their places of burial, the cypress is ever prominent, and 
is frequently planted not only at the head and foot, but often 
upon the grave itself. Large groves of these trees are care¬ 
fully cultivated, in order to supply mourners with them when 
required. Even in Japan the cypress expresses a similar 
sombre idea as with Europeans, and the native churches there 
are said to be generally surrounded by alleys of cypresses. 
When death was in the dwelling, the ancients were accus¬ 
tomed to place cypress either before the house or in the 
vestibule, so that no person about to perform any sacred rites 
