6 4 



TREES GROWING NEAR WATER. 



s*T. 



And throughout the happy summer 



It breathes as oft before 

 For its heart is grave and solemn 



The sweetest tales of yore. 



'Till in tune with winter's sorrow 



It moans a plaintive cry, 

 And its boughs are bent with weeping 



That calms the passer-by. 



There is f perhaps, no other tree about which more sentiment 

 clusters than the weeping willow. It 

 is not like a flower that remains on the 

 earth only long enough to accomplish its 

 purpose of reproduction ; it lives to cast 

 its shade upon many generations. When 

 it has attained a great age and grown to a 

 large size there is a gravity about it 

 which is most impressive. The idea of 

 its weeping and its specific name have, 

 it is said, been suggested by the lamen- 

 tation of the Hebrews in Psalm cxxxvii, 

 although Populus Euphratica is also be- 

 lieved to be the Garab-tree of the Arabs, 



SMix Babyldnica. 



and the weeping willow of the Psalmist. 



" By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remem- 

 bered Zion. 



We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof." 



Thoreau, however, who is always cheerful, says of the tree : 

 " It may droop it is so lithe and supple but it never weeps. 

 It droops not to represent David's tears, but rather to snatch 

 the crown from Alexander's head." 



The story of its introduction into Europe and America from 

 the Orient is an interesting one. Shortly after Alexander Pope 

 had built his villa at Twickenham on the Thames, he received 

 from a friend in Smyrna a drum of figs. Within it there also 

 was a small twig which excited the poet's curiosity. He stuck 



