Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/60

 walls of the Monastery, where melancholy, deepest melancholy spread her raven wings."

Ah! if the children of vanity, of dissipation, sometimes visited a scene like this, surely (thought she) their hearts would be amended; they would be convinced of the littleness of this world, of the folly of placing their entire affections upon it, when they beheld "nobility arrayed in a winding sheet, grandeur mouldering in an urn, and the high grass waving round the hero's tomb, while his dusty banner, the banner which he once unfurled to strike consternation on his foes, hung idly fluttering o'er it."

At the grave of her benefactress she paused.

"Here (said she) gratitude and affection must ever linger. Oh! my friend, my mother, never can thy kindness be obliterated from my heart, never can my heart be consoled for thy loss: alas! from thy deep sleep the sighs of thy Madeline cannot awake thee!