THE POETRY OF TREES 



505 



of her eyes, at that large dew-drop, which the 



sun lias let escape unmelted, even on into the me- 

 ridian hours, on the topmost pink hud of that little 

 lime-tree, but three winters old, and half a spring! 

 Hark! that is Harry, at home on a holiday, rust- 

 ling like a roe in the coppice wood, in search of 

 the nest of the blackbird or mavis — yet ten years 

 ago that rocky hill-side was implanted, and i: that 

 bold hoy, so bright and beautiful," unborn. Who, 

 then — be his age what it may — would either lin- 

 ger, " with fond, reluctant, amorous delay ,' ; to 

 take unto himself a wife, for the purpose of having 

 children, or to enclose a waste for the purpose of 

 having trees? 



At what time of life a human being — man or 

 woman — looks best, it might be hard to say. A 

 virgin of eighteen, straight and tall, bright, bloom- 

 ing, and balmy, seems, to our old eyes, a very 

 beautiful and delightful sight. Inwardly we bless 

 her, and pray that she may be as happy as she is 

 innocent. So, too, is an oak tree, about the same 

 age, standing by itself, without a twig on its 

 straight, smooth, round, glossy, silver stem, for 

 some lew feet from the ground, and then branch- 

 ing out into a stately flutter of dark-green leaves; 

 the shape being indistinct in its regular but not 

 formal over-fallings, and over-foldings, and over- 

 hangings, of light and shade. Such an oak tree is 

 indeed truly beautiful, with all its tenderness, 

 gracefulness, and delicacy — ay, a delicacy almost 

 seeming to be fragile, as if the cushat whirring 

 from its concealment, would crush the new spring- 

 shoots, sensitive almost as the gossamer, with 

 which every twig is intertwined. Leaning on 

 our staff, we bless it, and call it even by that 

 very virgin's name ; and ever thenceforth be- 

 hold Louisa lying in its shade. Gentle reader, 

 what it is to be an old, dreamy, visionary, prosing 

 poet ! 



Good God ! let any one w T ho accuses trees of la- 

 ziness in growing, only keep out of sight, of them 

 for a few years; and then, returning home to 

 them under cloud of night, all at once open his 

 eyes, of a fine, sunny, summer's morning, and ask 

 them how they have been since he and they mu- 

 tually murmured farewell ! He will not recog- 

 nize the face or the figure of a single tree. That 

 sycamore, whose top-shoot a cow, you know, 

 browsed off, lo the breaking of your heart, some 

 four or five years ago, is now as high as the 

 " rigging" of the cottage, and is murmuring with 

 bees among its blossoms, quite like an old tree. 

 What precocity ! That Wych elm. hide-bound as 

 it seemed of yore, and with only one arm that it 

 could hardly lift from its side, is now a Briareus. 

 Is that the larch you used to hop over — now al- 

 most fit to be a mast of one of the fairy fleet on 

 Windermere ? You thought you would never 

 have forgotten the Triangle of the Three Birches 

 — but you stare at them now as if they had drop- 

 ped from the clouds; and since you think that 

 beach — that round hill of leaves — is not the same 

 habby shrub you loft sticking in the gravel, whv 



Vol. iv. 35 



call the old gardener hither, and swear him to its 

 identity on the Bible. 



Before this confounded gout attacked our toe, 

 we were great pedestrians, and used to stalk 

 about all over the banks and braes from sunrising 

 to sunsetting, through all seasons of the year. 

 Few sights used to please us more than that of a 

 new Mansion-house, or Villa, or Cottage ornec, 

 rising up in some sheltered, but open-fronted 

 nook, commanding a view of a few bends of a 

 stream or river winding along old lea, or rich 

 holm ploughed ficlda — sloping uplands, with here 

 and there a farm-house and tree — and in the dis- 

 tance hill-tops quite clear, and cutting the sky, 

 wreathed with mists, or for a time hidden in 

 clouds. It set the imagination and the heart at 

 work together, to look on the young hedge-rows 

 and plantations, belts, clumps, and single trees, 

 hurdled in from the nibbling sheep. Ay, some 

 younger brother, who, twenty, or thirty, or forty 

 years ago, went abroad to the East, or the West, 

 to push his fortune, has returned to the neighbor- 

 hood of his native vale at last, to live and to die 

 among the braes, where once, among the yellow 

 broom, the school-boy sported gladsome as any 

 bird. Busy has he been in adorning — perhaps the 

 man who fixes his faith on Price on the Pic- 

 turesque, would say, in disfiguring — the inland 

 haven where he has dropped anchor, and will con- 

 tinue to ride till the vessel of life parts from her 

 moorings, and drifts away on the shoreless sea of 

 eternity. For our own parts, we are not easily 

 offended by any conformation into which trees can 

 be thrown — the bad taste of another must not be 

 suffered to throw us into a bad temper — and so 

 long as the trees are green in their season, and in 

 their season, purple, and orange, and yellow, and 

 refrain from murdering each other, to our eye they 

 are pleasant to look upon — to our ear it is music, 

 indeed, to hear them all a-murmur along with the 

 murmuring winds. Hundreds — thousands of such 

 dwellings have, in our time, arisen all over the 

 face of Scotland ; and there is room enough, we 

 devoutly trust, and verily believe, for hundreds 

 and thousands more. Of a people's prosperity, 

 what pleasanter proof! And, therefore, may all 

 the well-fenced woods make more and more won- 

 derful shoots every year. Beneath and among 

 their shelter, may not a single slate be blown 

 from the blue roof, peering through the trees, on 

 the eyes of the distant traveller, as he wheels along 

 on the top of his most gracious Majesty's mail- 

 coach; may the dryads soon wipe away their 

 tears for the death of the children that must, in 

 thinnings, be " wede away;" and may the rooke- 

 ries and heronries of Scotland increase in number 

 for the long space of ten thousand revolving 

 years ! 



Not that we hold it to be a matter of pure in- 

 difference, how people plant trees. We have an 

 eye for the picturesque, the sublime, and the beau- 

 tiful, and cannot open it without seeing at once 

 the very spirit of the scene ! ye, who have 



