1 70 Yew-Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Thou sole companion of the lowly tomb ! 



No leaves but thine in pity o'er them sigh, 



Lo ! now, to fancy's gaze thou seem'st to spread 



Thy shadowy boughs to shroud me with the dead.' 



The editor of the Naturalist's Poetical Companion 

 observes : ' I suppose Dr. Leyden is John Leyden, 

 who contributed to Scott's Border Minstrelsy, 

 whose poems and ballads were published with a 

 memoir by Sir Walter Scott in 1858.' 



In Hood's Ode to Autumn we find the following 

 stanza : 



' Where is the Dryad's immortality ? 

 Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, 

 Or wearing the long gloomy winter through 

 In the smooth hollow's green eternity.' 



Bishop Mant has some pretty lines, showing a 

 close observation of the character of the tree : 



* Nor less curious the mountain yew, 

 Which, 'mid its leaves of solemn hue, 

 Its sulphur-coloured anthers now, 

 In clusters on the dark green bough ; 

 Here void of cup or blossom fair, 

 Exhibits ; and at distance there 

 Its verdant chalices minute, 

 The embryos of its scarlet fruit.' 



Keats and Wordsworth are the only other Eng- 

 lish poets who appear to mention the fruit. 



Wordsworth speaks of the yew as ' decked with 

 unrejoicing berries.' Why they should be described 

 as ' unrejoicing,' except for their association with 



