1 68 Yew- Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Swift makes Baucis and Philemon change into 

 yews : 



' Description would but tire my muse : 

 In short they both were turned to yews. 

 Old Goodman Dobson of the Green 

 Remembers he the trees has seen. 

 On Sundays after evening prayer, 

 He gathers all the parish there ; 

 Points out the place of either yew, 

 Here Baucis, there Philemon grew. 

 Till once the parson of our town, 

 To mend his barn cut Baucis down ; 

 At which 'tis hard to be believed 

 How much the other tree was grieved, 

 Grew scrubbed, died a-top, was stunted, 

 So the next parson stubb'd and burnt it.' 



Dryden terms it the ' mourner-yew ' : * 



* The mourner-yew and builder-oak were there.' 



Shotterel and Durfey 2 have the following : 



* By shafts of bending yew 

 In streams of crimson gore paid Nature's due.' 



Blair thus addresses himself to the grave and 

 yew : 



' Well do I know thee by thy trusty yew ; 

 Cheerless, unsocial plant, that loves to dwell 

 'Midst skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms ; 

 Where light-heel'd ghosts and visionary shades, 

 Beneath the wan cold moon (so fame reports), 

 Embodied thick, perform their mystic rounds ; 

 No other merriment, dull tree, is thine.' 



1 Palamon and Arcite> 195 from end. 2 Archery Revived. 



