162 FUNERAL FLOWERS. 
Atala lay stretched upon a couch of sensitive 
plants ; her feet, head, and shoulders, were un¬ 
covered, and her hair was adorned with a flower 
of a magnolia, it was the same flower w’hich I 
had placed upon the maiden’s head.” 
“Thus have I seen a rose with rising morn, 
Unfold its glowing bloom, sweet to the smell, 
And lovely to the eye, when a keen wind 
Hath torn its blushing leaves, and laid it low, 
Stripped of its sweets.” —Michael Bruce. 
These lines may well apply to the gentle and 
lovely being who was laid at rest in the depths 
of the Indian forest; and in allusion to the 
burial places of whose countrymen, Chateau¬ 
briand thus writes :—I have seen memorable 
monuments to Crassus and to Caesar, but I 
prefer the airy tombs of the Indians, those mau¬ 
soleums of flowers and verdure, refreshed by 
the morning dew; embalmed and waved by 
the breeze on the same branch where the black¬ 
bird builds his nest, and utters forth his plain¬ 
tive melody.” 
But let us leave the mighty fore.sts and far 
sweeping rivers of the West, and come to our 
