“Upon her grave the Rosemary they threw,
The Daisy, Butter-flower, and Endive blue.”
Rosemary was considered as an emblem of faithful remembrance. Thus Ophelia says: “There’s Rosemary for you, that’s for remembrance; pray you, love, remember.” Probably this was the reason that the plant was carried by the followers at a funeral in former days: a custom noticed by the poet in the following lines:—
“To show their love, the neighbours far and near
Follow’d with wistful look the damsel’s bier;
Sprigg’d Rosemary the lads and lasses bore,
While dismally the parson walked before.”
It is still customary in some parts of England to distribute Rosemary among the company at a funeral, who frequently throw sprigs of it into the grave.
Wordsworth introduces in one of his smaller poems an allusion to a practice which still prevails in the North of England:—
“The basin of Box-wood, just six months before,