TREES IN NATURE 103 



Perennially — beneath whose sable roof 



Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked 



With unrejoicing berries — ghostly shapes 



May meet at noontide ; Fear and trembling Hope, 



Silence and Foresight ; Death the Skeleton 



And Time the Shadow ; — there to celebrate, 



As in a natural temple scattered o'er 



With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, 



United worship ; or in mute repose 



To lie, and listen to the mountain flood 



Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves. 



Wordsworth, in these lines, not only accurately 

 describes the yew-tree, but expresses the effect 

 that its structure and appearance have on his 

 feelings. Then — and here the immemorial 

 years of the trees come in to suggest what 

 again is feeling rather than mere fancy — he 

 peoples its shade with the ghosts of what 

 humanity experiences as the years pass by; 

 and the vast reaches of time, through which 

 the trees have lived, are vividly suggested by 

 the ghosts being made, when in mute repose, 

 to listen to the mountain-stream whose mur- 

 murs by long ages preceded the sighing of the 

 winds through the yew-grove, even in its earliest 

 years. 



For one more literary reference to the yew 

 we turn to Tennyson's *'In Memoriam". In 



