1 70 Vew- Trees of Great Bintain a?id Ireland 



Thou sole companion of the lowly tomb ! 



No leaves but thine in pity o'er them sigh, 



Lo ! now, to fancy's gaze thou seem'st to spread 



Thy shadowy boughs to shroud me with the dead.' 



The editor of the Naturalist's Poetical Companion 

 observes : ' I suppose Dr. Leyden is John Leyden, 

 who contributed to Scott's Border Minstrelsy, 

 whose poems and ballads were published with a 

 memoir by Sir Walter Scott in 1858.' 



In Hood's Ode to A2Uu7nn we find the following 



stanza : — 



' Where is the Dryad's immortality? 

 Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, 

 Or wearing the long gloomy winter through 

 In the smooth hollow's green eternity.' 



Bishop Mant has some pretty lines, showing a 

 close observation of the character of the tree : — 



' Nor less curious the mountain yew. 

 Which, 'mid its leaves of solemn hue, 

 Its sulphur-coloured anthers now. 

 In clusters on the dark green bough ; 

 Here void of cup or blossom fair. 

 Exhibits ; and at distance there 

 Its verdant chalices minute, 

 The embryos of its scarlet fruit.' 



Keats and Wordsworth are the only other Eng- 

 lish poets who appear to mention the fruit. 



Wordsworth speaks of the yew as ' decked with 

 unrejoicing berries.' Why they should be described 

 as 'unrejoicing,' except for their association with 



