294 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



These lines are translated by Montgomery : 



" The tall oak, towering to the skies, 

 The fury of the wind defies, 

 From age to age in virtue strong, 

 Inured to stand and suffer wrong. 



O'erwhelmed at length upon the plain, 

 It puts forth wings, and sweeps the main ; 

 The self-same foe undaunted braves, 

 And fights the wind upon the waves." 



Wordsworth speaks of the Oak's fine broad shade : 



" Beneath that large old oak, which near their door 

 Stood, and, from its enormous hreadth of shade, 

 Chosen for the shearer's covert from the sun, 

 Thence, in our rustic dialect was called 

 The Clipping- tree; a name which yet it bears." 



The poet adds a note to explain that clipping is a word 

 used in the north of England for shearing. 



Spenser compares a grey-headed old man to an old 

 Oak tree covered with frost : 



" There they do find that godly aged sire, 

 With snowy locks adown his shoulders shed, 

 As hoary frost with spangles doth attire 

 The mossy branches of an oak half dead." 



Age, borne up by mental strength to a stout defiance 

 of misfortune or danger, has frequently afforded a simile 

 with the oak tree past its prime : 



" Silent and tall he seemed as an oak on the banks of Lugar, 

 which had its branches blasted of old by the lightning of heaven. 

 It bends over the stream ; the grey moss whistles in the wind. So 

 stood the king." 



OSSIAN'S Fingal. 



