Poetical allusions Shelley, Wordsworth \ 7 3 



Shelley has the following striking description in 

 The Cenci : 



' Below, 



You hear but see not an impetuous torrent 

 Raging among the caverns, and a bridge 

 Crosses the chasm ; and high above there grow, 

 With interesting trunks from crag to crag, 

 Cedars and yews and pines ; whose tangled hair 

 Is matted in one solid roof of shade 

 By the dark ivy's twine.' 



Wordsworth's celebrated poem, Yew Trees, is 

 (as Professor Shairp points out 1 ) a striking in- 

 stance of the manner in which the poet passes 

 rapidly to the heart of a natural object after faith- 

 fully describing * only one or two of its most essen- 

 tial features.' ' Who else,' asks Professor Shairp, 

 ' could have condensed the total impression in such 

 lines as these, so intensely imaginative, so pro- 

 foundly true ? ' 



* There is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, 

 Which to this day stands single in the midst 

 Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore> 

 Not loth to furnish weapons for the band 

 Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they march'd 

 To Scotland's heaths : or those that crossed the sea 

 And drew their sounding bows at Azincourt, 

 Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers. 

 Of vast circumference and gloom profound 

 This solitary tree ! a living thing 



1 Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, p. 62. 



