SOME TREE LORE 67 



And briony vine and ivy wreath 



Ran forward to his rhyming, 

 And from the valleys underneath 



Came little copses climbing. 



" The linden broke her ranks and rent 



The woodbine wreaths that bind her, 

 And down the middle, buzz ! she went 



With all her bees behind her; 

 The poplars, in long order due, 



With cypress promenaded. 

 The shock-head willows, two and two, 



By rivers gallopaded. 



" Came wet-shot alder from the wave, 



Came yews, a dismal coterie; 

 Each plucked his one foot from the grave, 



Poussetting with a sloe tree: 

 Old elms came breaking from the vine; 



The vine streamed out to follow. 

 And, sweating rosin, plumped the pine 



From many a cloudy hollow. 



" And wasn't it a sight to see. 

 When, ere his song was ended, 

 Like some great landslip, tree by tree. 



The countryside descended; 

 And shepherds, from the mountain-eaves 



Looked down, half-pleased, half-frightened. 

 As dashed about the drunken leaves 

 The random sunshine lightened !" 



Tennyson : Amfhion, 



In the olden days of myth and legend, it is 

 recorded that people and nymphs were often 

 transformed into trees, sometimes at their own re- 

 quest, bnt more often for offending the gods. 



The Heliads, children of the sun, were changed 

 to poplars, Altis to a pine, the mother of Adonis 

 to a myrrh tree; an Apulian shepherd who mocked 



