THE POPLAR AND THE WILLOW. 59 



delicate tracery so remarkable in the others. Lastly, there is a curious 

 contrast in the aspiring tendency of the poplar and in the "weeping" 

 inclination, not only of the famous willow of Babylon, but in several 

 other representatives of the genus. The last-named feature has obtained 

 for the willow a place in the "Language of Flowers." When the poet 

 would picture sadness, he needs only to cite this drooping and sorrow- 

 ful tree ; the very name is a synonyme for grief beyond assuaging. How 

 deep the meaning, for instance, in the description of poor, forsaken, 

 desolated Dido, 



In such a night, 



Stood Dido with a willow in her hand, 

 Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love 

 To come again to Carthage. 



In pictures such as these we have the sign of the true and immortal 

 Poet, who, without wordy delineation of the varied passions that may 

 fill the heart, presents to us, in a single phrase, a perfect idea of its 

 condition. Even the erect kinds of willow have none of that pretty 

 cheerfulness about them which belongs to most other trees. Although 

 the springing of the willows "by the water-courses" is used as an 

 illustration of gladness and prosperity, still they seem by nature 

 intended for association rather with times of mournfulness than of joy. 

 Possibly this may arise from their being so very generally located by 

 the water-side, on the banks of slow streams and rivers, where the 

 mind becomes attuned to melancholy, and the very reeds convey 

 utterances of dejection. Hence, it would appear, the very frequent 

 connection, both of the willow and the poplar, with events that have a 

 hue of trouble, in the legends that have been bequeathed to us by the 

 ancient fabulists. When the sisters of Phaeton, inconsolable for the 

 untimely end of their brother, were by the pitying deity transformed 

 into trees, poplars were made the memorial, and to this day, every 

 spring, the tears of those unhappy ladies reappear upon the opening 

 leaf-buds. It was upon a poplar that poor (Enone found the inscrip- 

 tion left by her faithless lover ; it is with a poplar that Virgil connects 

 his exquisite image of the nightingale robbed of her nest : 

 Qualis populea mcerens Philomela suh umbra 

 Amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator 

 Observaus nido implumes detraxit : at ilia 

 Flet noctem , ratnoque sedens miserabile carmen 

 Integrat, et mcestis late loca questibus implet. 



"As the mourning nightingale within a poplar shade grieves for her 

 lost young, which the ruthless ploughman, espying in her nest, has 



