Gilpin says we do not employ the Willow to screen the broken buttresses and Gothic windows of an abbey, nor to overshadow the battlements of a ruined castle. These offices it resigns to the oak, whose dignity can support them. The Weeping Willow seeks a humbler scene—some romantic foot-path bridge, which it half conceals, or some glassy pool, over which it hangs its streaming foliage,
—and dips
Its pendent boughs, stooping, as if to drink.
In these situations it appears in character, and to advantage.
No poet ever mentions the Weeping Willow but in connection with sad and melancholy thoughts. Burns, in his "Braes of Yarrow," thus sings:
Take off, take off these bridal weeds,
And crown my careful head with Willow.
Prior alludes to the afflicted daughters of Israel:
Afflicted Israel shall sit weeping down,
Their harps upon the neighbouring Willows hung.
And Dr. Booker refers to the same pathetic scene:
Silent their harps (each cord unstrung)
On pendent Willow branches hung.
The Willow is generally found growing on the borders of small streams or rivers. The Sacred writers almost constantly refer to this natural habit. Thus in Job we read: