And again:—
The dreary night owl screams in the solitary retreat of his mouldering ivy-covered tower.—Larnul, the Song of Despair.
The Persian poet quoted by Gibbon also says,—
The spider hath hung with tapestry the palace of the Cæsars; the owl singeth her sentinel-song in the watch-towers of Afrasiab.—Firdousi.
Tell us, ye dead; will none of you in pity
Disclose the secret——
What ’tis you are, and we must shortly be?—Blair: Grave.
The dead! the much-loved dead!
Who doth not yearn to know