262 ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



IN PRAISE OF TREES. 



AND foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led, 

 Joying to heare the birdes sweete harmony, 

 Which, therein shrouded from the tempest dred, 

 Seemed in their song to scorne the cruell sky. 

 Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy, 

 The sayling Pine; the Cedar proud and tall; 

 The vine-propp Elme ; the Poplar never dry; 

 The builder Oake, sole king of forrests all; 

 The Aspine good for staves; the Cypresse funerall. 



The Laurel!, meed of mightie conquerors 

 And poets sage; the Firre that weepeth still; 

 The Willow, worne of forlorne Paramours; 

 The Eugh, obedient to the benders will ; 

 The Birch, for shafts ; the Sallow for the mill ; 

 The Mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound; 

 The warlike Beech ; the Ash for nothing ill ; 

 The fruitfull Olive ; and the Platane round ; 

 The carver Holme ; the Maple seldom inward sound. 



SPENSER, Faerie Queene. 



TONGUES IN TREES. 



In the forest of Arden, Shakespeare makes the banished duke say to his- 

 companions 



TV TOW, my co-mates and brothers in exile, 

 1M Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 

 Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods 

 More free from peril than the envious court? 

 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 

 The season's difference, as the icy fang 

 And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, 

 Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, 

 Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say: 

 'This is no flattery; these are counsellors 

 That feelingly persuade me what I am.' 



Sweet are the uses of adversity. * * * 



* * * * 



And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 

 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 

 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. 

 I would not change it." 



As You Like It, act 2, scene i_ 



