93 



Mrs. Hemans, on a Sunday morning in Spring, says ; 

 " How many blessed groups this hour are bending 

 Through England's primrose meadow-paths their way, 

 Tow'rd spire and tower midst shadowy Elms ascending, 

 Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallow'd day." 



Was it this association, or was it rather some morbid fancy of tlie hour, 

 that made Hood write his melancholy poem on the Elm? — 



" 'Twas in a shady avenue, 

 Where lofty elms abound, 

 And from a tree there came to me 



A sad and solemn sound. 

 That sometimes murmur'd overhead 

 And sometimes underground. 



Amongst the leaves it seemed to sigh, 



Amid the boughs to moan, 

 It muttered in the stem, and then 



The roots took up the tone ; 

 As if beneath the dewy grass 



The dead began to moan," 



And so it .goes on with the repetition of the melancholy refrain again and 

 again, to keep up the feeling of mysterious gloom. It is false, however, to 

 the tree, and simply reflects the sadness of the author's mind. 



Wordsworth is much more true to nature in his " Churchyaxd amongst 

 the Mountains," where he calls it — 



"The JOYFUL ELM 

 Around whose trunk the maidens dance in May." 



The Elm a melancholy tree ! the very rooks that love to build their cities in its 

 topmost boughs forbid it by the active bustle of their lives. There is indeed 

 nothing gloomy about the Ebn. It is associated with all our life-long summer 

 pleasures ; we play under it in our earliest years ; we swing upon it, we climb 

 it as boys ; in love and in friendship we revel in its shade ; and as age advances 

 on us we rest and meditate at leisure, enjoying the cool protection it affords 

 from the hottest summer's sun. The Elms of home hang on the memory when 

 away, and in the outline of their tall fonns we first recognise from afar the 

 reality of our return ; the village Elm is the pleasant lounge of the inhabitants ; 

 on its trunk public notices are fixed; beneath its shade all the news of the 

 neighbourhood is talked over ; and there, too, stood in the days that most of 

 us can yet remember, the parish stocks, to give the depth of tragical interest 

 to the brighter tints of its usual characteristic features. 



[ Note. — The space so commonly to be found 



"Amid the gloom, 

 Spread by a brotherhood of lofty Elms," 



near the churches and in other piSblic places on the Continent, is so 



thoroughly recognised as the general gossip shop, as to give rise to the old 



ironical proverb for a private assignation 



" Attendez-moi sous I'Orme." 



The spirit of which will be best shewn perhaps in English, by the vulgar 

 saying, " Don't you wish you may get it." ] 



