174 AMENTACE^ 



Indeed, to "shake like an Aspen " is one of our oldest English provei'1)s. In 

 our own days, many poets allude to its movement. Leyden says : — 



" Again beside this silver riv'let's shore, 

 With green and yellow moss-flowers niottled o'er, 

 Beneath a shivering canopy reclined 

 Of Asj)en-leaves, tliat wave witliout a wind, 

 I love to lie when hilling breezes stir 

 The spiny cones that tremble on the tir," 



Miss Jewsliury, too, looked on the Aspen to draw a lesson from its restless- 

 ness, which Ave might well take to our hearts :— 



' ' I would not be 



A leaf on yonder Aspen-tree, 



In every tickle breeze to play 



So wildlj', weakly, idly gay. 



So feebly framed, so lightly hung, 



By the wings of an insect stirr'd and swung ; 



Thrilling even to a redbreast's note, 



Drooping, if only a liglit mist float ; 



Brighten'd and dinun'd like a varying glass 



As shadow or sunshine chance to pass. 

 * * * * * 



Spirit, proud spirit, ponder thy state, 



If thine the leaf's lightness, not thine the leaf's fate ; 



It may flutter and glitter, and wither and die. 



And heed not our pity, and ask not our sigh ; 



But lor thee, the immortal, no winter may tlirow 



Eternal repose on thy joy or thy woe ; 



Tliou must live — live for ever, in glory or gloom 



Beyond the world's precincts, beyond the dark tomb ; 



Look to thyself, then, ere past is Hope's reign, 



And looking and longing alike are in vain ; 



Lest thou deem it a bliss to have been, or to be. 



But a fluttering leaf of j'on Aspen-tree." 



There is a tradition amono; the Highlanders that the Cross was made of 

 the wood of this Poplar ; and Mr. De Quincey says that the legend is 

 "European, or rather co-extensive with Christendom, that it shivers 

 mystically in sympathy with that mother tree, which was compelled to 

 furnish the materials for the Cross." Yet an old notion was once very 

 prevalent that the Cross Avas formed of four pieces of wood, signifying the 

 four quarters of the globe; and the palm, cedar, olive, and cypress Avere 

 believed by some to be the chosen trees, while others substituted the pine 

 and box for the cedar and palm. Our fathers certainly ought to have known 

 of Avhat Avood it Avas made, if portions of this sacred relic Avere as common in 

 other places as they were at Bury St. Edmunds, Avhere the visitors Avho Avent 

 to examine into the state of the monastery, at the time of the Keformation, 

 found "peces of the Holy Cross, enough to make a hole crosse." 



But Ave are AA^andering aAvay from the Aspen, Avhich groAvs very rapidly, 

 and Avhen at its full height is a middle-sized tree, Avitli a trunk free from 

 branches, and covered Avith a smooth grey bai k, Avhich cracks as it grows 

 older. The young tough and pliant shoots are of a reddish-green colour, 

 and when the Aspen is old its branches often droop. The leaves are of a 

 paler green beneath, and a bright glossy green above, A'arying much in out- 

 line. The margin is somewhat waved, and the footstalk often longer than 



