FOREST TREES 119 



III. COWPER'S 



ATTRACTIVE is the woodland scene, 

 Diversified with trees of every growth, 

 Alike, yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks 

 Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine, 

 Within the twilight of their distant shades; 

 There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood 

 Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmost boughs. 



No tree in all the grove but has its charms, 

 Though each its hue peculiar; paler some, 



10 And of a wannish gray, the willow such, 

 And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf, 

 And ash far- stretching his umbrageous arm; 

 Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still, 

 Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak : 

 Some glossy-leaved and shining in the sun, 

 The maple, and the beech of oily nuts 

 Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve 

 Diffusing odours: nor unnoted pass 

 The sycamore, capricious in attire, 



20 Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet 

 Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright. 



The Task, Book I. 

 [The Task was published in 1785. See Notes, p. 50.] 



EXERCISES 



1. Describe a ramble in a wood in spring, summer, autumn, 

 or winter. 



2. Collect (or figure) specimens of the leaves of the trees in 

 Cowper's list. 



3. How do you distinguish from one another the different 



