Thus, in poems by Thomas Stanley, Esq. (published in 1651), is
the following stanza:
Yet strew
Upon my dismall grave
Such offerings as you have,
Forsaken cypresse and yewe;
For kinder flowers can take no birth
Or growth from such unhappy earth.
In The Maid's Tragedy, a pathetic little air, is introduced,
illustrative of this mode of decorating the funerals of females
who had been disappointed in love:
Lay a garland on my hearse
Of the dismall yew,
Maidens, willow branches wear,
Say I died true.
My love was false, but I was firm,
From my hour of birth;
Upon my buried body lie
Lightly, gentle earth.
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and
elevate the mind; and we have a proof of it in the purity of
sentiment and the unaffected elegance of thought which pervaded
the whole of these funeral observances. Thus it was an especial
precaution that none but sweet-scented evergreens and flowers
should be employed. The intention seems to have been to soften
the horrors of the tomb, to beguile the mind from brooding over
the disgraces of perishing mortality, and to associate the memory
of the deceased with the most delicate and beautiful objects in
nature.
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