200 
MOURNING. 
of mourning; and we are told by Irving that, 
in Latium, on the decease of any person, a 
branch of cypress is placed before the door. 
It is strictly the “ sorrowing tree,” nor do 
we ask with Prior, 
Why does the cypress flourish in the shade ? 
For there is scarcely any poet who does not 
write of it in mournful sadness. Spenser 
records it as “ the cypress funeral; ” and 
Miss Landon observes, 
A funeral train 
Will in a cypress grove he found. 
And again, 
The moon is o’er a grove of cypress trees 
Weeping like mourners. 
And Byron asks, 
Ah! why 
With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy 
bowers ? 
Mournful as is the wreath, we find it bestow¬ 
ed, a sad memorial, by the hand of friendship : 
O’er ruined shrines and silent tombs. 
The weeping cypress spreads its glooms,^ 
In immortality of woe, 
Whilst other shrubs in gladness blow, 
And fling upon the passing wind 
Their liberal treasures unconfined. 
