In The Maid's Tragedy, by Beaumont
and Fletcher, there is a beautiful instance of the kind
describing the capricious melancholy of a broken-hearted girl:
When she sees a bank
Stuck full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell
Her servants, what a pretty place it were
To bury lovers in; and made her maids
Bluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse.
The custom of decorating graves was once universally prevalent:
osiers were carefully bent over them to keep the turf uninjured,
and about them were planted evergreens and flowers. "We adorn
their graves," says Evelyn, in his Sylva, "with flowers and
redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been
compared in Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties whose roots,
being buried in dishonor, rise, again in glory." This usage has
now become extremely rare in England; but it may still be met
with in the churchyards of retired villages, among the Welsh
mountains; and I recollect an instance of it at the small town of
Ruthven, which lies at the head of the beautiful vale of Clewyd.
I have been told also by a friend, who was present at the funeral
of a young girl in Glamorganshire, that the female attendants had
their aprons full of flowers, which, as soon as the body was
interred, they stuck about the grave.
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