it. "Meek creatures! the first mercy
of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its dentless rocks: creatures
full of pity, covering with strange and tender honour the sacred
disgrace of ruin, laying quiet fingers on the trembling stones to teach
them rest. No words that I know of will say what these Mosses are; none
are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough.. . . . They
will not be gathered like the flowers for chaplet or love token; but of
these the wild bird will make its nest and the wearied child its pillow,
and as the earth's first mercy so they are its last gift to us. When all
other service is vain from plant and tree, the soft Mosses and grey
Lichens take up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms,
the gift-bearing Grasses have done their parts for a time, but these do
service for ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's
chamber, Corn for the granary, Moss for the grave."

FOOTNOTES:

[164:1] There may be special appropriateness in the selection of the
"furr'd Moss" to "winter-ground thy corse." "The final duty of Mosses is
to die; the main work of other leaves is in their life, but these have
to form the earth, out of which other leaves are to grow."--RUSKIN,
_Proserpina_, p. 20.

MULBERRIES.

(1) _Titania._

Feed him with Apricocks and Dewberries,
With purple Grapes, green Figs, and Mulberries.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (169).

(2) _Volumnia._

Thy stout heart,
Now humble as the ripest Mulberry
That will not bear the handling.

_Coriolanus_, act iii, sc. 2 (78).

(3) _Prologue._

Thisby tarrying in Mulberry shade.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1 (149).

(4) _Wooer._

Palamon is gone
Is gone to the wood to gather Mulberries.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (87).

(5)

The birds would bring him Mulberries and ripe-red Cherries.

_Venus and Adonis_ (1103).
(_See_ CHERRIES.)

We do not know when the Mulberry, which is an Eastern tree, was
introduced into England, but probably very early. We find in Archbishop
AElfric's "Vocabulary," "morus vel rubus, mor-beam," but it is doubtful
whether that applies to the Mulberr