In the freshness of joyous morning, we remember his beaming
smiles and bounding gayety; and when sober evening returns with its
gathering shadows and subduing quiet, we call to mind many a
twilight hour of gentle talk and sweet-souled melancholy.
Each lonely place shall him restore,
For him the tear be duly shed;
Beloved, till life can charm no more;
And mourn'd till pity's self be dead.
Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the deceased in the
country is that the grave is more immediately in sight of the
survivors. They pass it on their way to prayer, it meets their eyes
when their hearts are softened by the exercises of devotion; they
linger about it on the Sabbath, when the mind is disengaged from
worldly cares, and most disposed to turn aside from present
pleasures and present loves, and to sit down among the solemn mementos
of the past. In North Wales the peasantry kneel and pray over the
graves of their deceased friends, for several Sundays after the
interment; and where the tender rite of strewing and planting
flowers is still practised, it is always renewed on Easter,
Whitsuntide, and other festivals, when the season brings the companion
of former festivity more vividly to mind.
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