FUNERAL FLOWERS. 151 
and exquisitely pictured is the scene of watching 
over her, previous to interment:—The pious 
anchorite ceased not to pray during the whole 
night. I sat in silence on the top of Atala’s 
funeral couch : how often had I supported her 
sleeping head upon my knees, and how often 
had I bent over her beauteous form, listening 
to her, and inhaling her perfumed breath ; but 
now no soft murmur issued from her motionless 
bosom, and it was in vain that I waited for my 
beloved to awake. The moon supplied her 
pale light to the funeral eve ; she rose at mid¬ 
night as a fair virgin that weeps over the bier 
of a departed friend ; it covered the whole 
scene with a deep melancholy, displaying the 
aged oaks and flowing rivers. From time to 
time the cenobite plunged a bunch of flowers 
into consecrated water, and bathed the couch of 
death with the heavenly dew, repeating, in a 
solemn voice, some verses from an ancient poet 
called Job :— 
“He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he 
fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. 
“ Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery ? 
and life unto the bitter of soul ?” 
