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funereal tree, whose branches it was at one time usual to carry
in solemn procession to the grave, and afterwards to deposit
therein under the bodies of departed friends. The custom of
planting Yew trees singly in churchyards is also one of considerable
antiquity. Statius, in his sixth Thebaid, calls it the solitary
Yew. Leyden thus apostrophises this funeral tree :—
“ Now more I love thee, melancholy Yew,
Whose still green leaves in silence wave
Above the peasant’s rude unhonoured grave.
Which oft thou moistenest with the morning dew.
To thee the sad, to thee the weary f ly ;
They rest in peace beneath thy sacred gloom.
Thou sole companion of the lonely tomb ;
No leaves but thine in pity o’er them siuh :
Lo 1 now to fancy’s gaze thou seem’st to spread
Thy shadowy boughs to shroud me with the dead.”
The Mountain Ash is to be found in most Welsh churchyards,
where it has been planted, not as a funeral tree, but as a defence
against evil spirits. In Montgomeryshire, it is customary to rest
the corpse on its way to the churchyard under one of these trees
of good omen.
William Cullen Bryant, the American poet, has left us a
graceful description of an English churchyard
“ Erewhile on England’s pleasant shores, our sires
Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades
Or blossoms ; and, indulgent to the strong
And natural dread of man’s last home—the grave !
Its frost and silence, they disposed around,
Too sadly on life’s close, the forms and hues
Of vegetable beauty. Then the Yew.
Green even amid the snows of Winter, told
Of immortality ; and gracefully
The Willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped ;
And there the gadding Woodbine crept about;
And there the ancient Ivy.”
The Walnut-tree, of which it is said that the shadow brings
death, is in some countries considered a funeral tree. In India
they call the Tamarisk, Yamadutika (Messenger of Yama, the
Indian god of death), and the Bombax Heptaphyllum, Yamadruma, the
tree of Yama.
The Elm and the Cak, although not stridtly funeral trees, are
conne(5ted with the grave by reason of their wood being used in
the construction of coffins, at the present day,_ just as Cypress
and Cedar wood used to be employed by the ancients.
“ And well the abounding Elm may grow
In field and hedge so rife ;
In forest, copse, and wooded park.
And ’mid the city’s strife ;
For every hour that passes by
Shall end a human life.”—Hood.
Brambles are used to bind down graves. Ivy, as an evergreen
and a symbol of friendship, is planted to run over the last
resting-place of those we love.
In Persia, it is the Basil-tuft that waves its fragrant blossoms
over tombs and graves. In Tripoli, Roses, Myrtle, Crange, and
Jasmine are planted round tombs; and a large bouquet of flowers
IS usually fastened at the head of the coffins of females. Upon
the death of a Moorish lady of quality every place is filled with
fresh flowers and burning perfumes, and at the head of the body
is placed a large bouquet. The mausoleum of the royal family is
filled with immense wreaths of fresh flowers, and generally tombs
are dressed with festoons of choice blossoms. The Chinese plant
Roses, a species of Lycoris, and the Anemone on their graves.
The Indians attribute a funereal charadter to the fragrant flowers
of the sacred Champak [Michelia Champaca).
The ancients planted the Asphodel around the tombs of the
deceased, in the belief that the seeds of this plant, and those of
the Mallow, afforded nourishment to the dead.
The Greeks employed the Rose to decorate the tombs of the
dead, and the floral decorations were frequently renewed, under
the belief that this bush was potent to protedt the remains of the
departed one. Anacreon alludes to this pradtice in' one of his
odes:—
“ When pain afflicts and sickness grieves,
Its juice the drooping heart relieves ;
And after death its odours shed
A pleasing fragrance o’er the dead.”
The Romans, also, were so partial to the Rose, that we find,
by old inscriptions at Ravenna and Milan, that codicils in the
wills of the deceased diredted that their tombs should be planted
with the queen of flowers—a practice said to have been introduced
by them into England. Camden speaks of the churchyards in his
time as thickly planted with Rose-trees; Aubrey notices a custom
at Cckley, in Surrey, of planting Roses on the graves of lovers ;
and Evelyn, who lived at Wotton Place, not far distant, mentions
the same pradtice. In Wales, White Roses mark the graves of the
young and of unmarried females; whilst Red Roses are placed
over anyone distinguished for benevolence of charadter.
All nations at different periods seem to have delighted to deck
the graves of their departed relatives with garlands of flowers__
emblems at once of beauty and quick fading into death.
“ With fairest flowers
While sumi-ner lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I ’ll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale Primrose ; nor
The azured Hare-bell, like thy veins ; no, nor
The leaf of Eglantine, which, not to slander,
Out-sweetened not thy breath.”
Shakspeare ( Cyviheline^ Act IV ),
O