WINTER BOUGHS 13 



chestnut the plan of those candlesticks of many 

 branches (probably copied from the fig tree) that 

 adorned the Temple ; and I have seen his plump 

 buds, wet with the kiss of the West wind, glimmer 

 along a Spring wood at time of sunset light, as though 

 each naked tree was hung with countless fairy lamps 

 of amber. The sycamore partakes of a somewhat 

 similar character, and his kinsman, the hedge-loving 

 maple, also, but in smaller sort. 



Next to the oak, however, stands the elm as most 

 characteristic of British trees, and the grey bulk of 

 him, whether pollarded in hedgerows or rising, un- 

 touched by steel, above park and pleasance, is a 

 dear sight to English eyes. Evidences of his million 

 flowerets will soon be visible and thicken that in- 

 finitely delicate tracery of him against the pallid blue 

 of spring skies ; but his noble anatomy is not yet 

 hidden ; his rounded head still draws grey, gauzy 

 patterns above the gloom of a winter world, and 

 writes "England" along the ridges of the high 

 hills, against the red earth of this my home, and 

 over the green valleys and water-meadows laced 

 with silver. Soon missel-thrushes, with harsh in- 

 quiry scattered on the windy air, will seek in 

 the forks of the elm for a place to build their 

 nests ; and they may err in their judgments and 

 choose a monarch that is doomed, for the woodmen 

 are busy at this season, and many a great elm has 

 burst its last bud. The tree is a part of rural life. 

 It shelters the hamlet ; greets the waking eyes of 



