"And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with nature's tear drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,--alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass," &c.--_Childe Harold_, Canto
iii. St. 27.
"The morning of the day on which the farmer was to be buried, was
rendered remarkable by the uncommon denseness of an autumnal fog. To
Mrs. Mason's eye, it threw a gloom over the face of nature; nor, when
it gradually yielded to the influence of the sun, and slowly retiring
from the valley, hung, as if rolled into masses, mid-way upon the
mountains, did the changes thus produced excite any admiration. Still,
wherever she looked, all seemed to wear the aspect of sadness. As she
passed from Morrison's to the house of mourning, the shocks of yellow
corn, spangled with dewdrops, appeared to her to stand as mementos of
the vanity of human hopes, and the inutility of human labours. The
cattle, as they went forth to pasture, lowing as they went, seemed as
if lamenting that the hand which fed them was at rest; and even the
Robin-red-breast, whose cheerful notes she had so often listened to
with pleasure, now seemed to send forth a song of sorrow, expressive of
dejection and woe."--Miss Hamilton's _Cottagers of Glenburnie_, chap.
xii.