Poets and their Favourite Trees. 



Alexander Pope, in one of his extra-poetical moods, once said : " I 

 consider a tree to be a more splendid object than a prince in his 

 coronation robes." Who can doubt the propriety of Pope's remark ? 

 Whether we look with admiration on — 



" The poplar, that with silver lines his leaf," 



or sit wliere the sparkle of the sunbeams may be seen glancing upon 

 the leaves of the — 



" Sycamore, capricious in attire ; 

 Now green, now tawny, and ere autumn yet 

 Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright ; 



whether we wander beneath the shadow of the radiant green of the 

 loosely hanging foliage of " the vine-prop elm," while the masses of 

 light which fall through its branches chequer the pathway ; or take 

 our stroll in the forest alley where — 



" The grey smooth trunks 

 Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine 

 Within the twilight of their distant shades, 



do we not feel tlie poetry of the forest pressing itself upon our minds ? 

 There are the varieties, the brilliancies, and the suggestions of the 

 renewed foliage to call forth our admiration ; and there are the 

 delicious odours, coolness, and shade of the forest trees to excite our 

 tliankfulness and delight. And if it be that we can roam where — 



" The rough forester, 

 Whose peeled and withered trunk and gnarled boughs 

 Have stood the rage of many a winter's blast," 



how many themes of solemn thought arise concerning the present and 

 the past, even while we rejoicing remember in our woodland ramble 

 fiat — 



" Hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed, 



Health to himself, and to his children bread 



The labourer bears " ! 



II )\v many associations swell the breast regarding — 

 " The lover's myrtle and the poet's bay " ! 

 And then, when the country stroll is done, or the indoor chair has 



