YOKE ELM. 



look forward, without dread or despondency, to the time 

 when we shall be permitted to rejoin them. 



Sir Walter Scott agrees with all other poets in regarding 

 the Yew Tree as having a sad and gloomy appearance, and as 

 producing a corresponding feeling in the mind. In Rokeby 

 he describes them thus — 



" But here, 'twixt rock and river grew 

 A dismal grove of sable Yew, 

 With whose sad tints were mingled seen 

 The blighted fir's sepulchral green. 

 Seemed that the trees their shadows cast, 

 The earth that nourished them to blast ; 

 For never knew that swarthy grove 

 The verdant hue that fairies love, 

 Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower, 

 Arose within its baleful bower. 

 The dank and sable earth receives 

 Its only carpet from the leaves, 

 That, from the withering branches cast, 

 Bestrewed the ground with every blast." 



YOKE ELM,— Ornament. 



Tins beautiful tree was formerly the principal ornament of 

 large gardens. It was used to form long verdant screens, for 

 porticoes, obelisks, pyramids, colonnades. Father Rapin, in 

 his poem, Des Jardiiis, wrote a fine eulogy on this tree. We 

 may see at Versailles how well the famed Le Notre knew to 

 introduce it into his beautiful designs. 



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