Poetical allusions — Shelley, Wordsworth i 7 3 



Shelley has the following striking description in 



The Cenci : — 



' Below, 

 You hear but see not an impetuous torrent 

 Raging among the caverns, and a bridge 

 Crosses the chasm ; and high above there grow, 

 With interesting trunks from crag to crag. 

 Cedars and yews and pines ; whose tangled hair 

 Is matted in one solid roof of shade 

 By the dark ivy's twine.' 



Wordsworth's celebrated poem, Yew Trees, is 

 (as Professor Shairp points out^) a striking in- 

 stance of the manner in which the poet passes 

 rapidly to the heart of a natural object after faith- 

 fully describing ' only one or two of its most essen- 

 tial features.' 'Who else,' asks Professor Shairp, 

 ' could have condensed the total impression in such 

 lines as these, so intensely imaginative, so pro- 

 foundly true ? ' 



* There is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, 

 Which to this day stands single in the midst 

 Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore. 

 Not loth to furnish weapons for the band 

 Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they march'd 

 To Scotland's heaths : or those that crossed the sea 

 And drew their sounding bows at Azincourt, 

 Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers. 

 Of vast circumference and gloom profound 

 This solitary tree ! — a living thing 



^ Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, p. 62. 



