WILLOW THEE 389 



to see this precious relic, that to put an end to the trouble 

 at once and for ever, she ga\e orders that it should be 

 felled to the ground. 



The Weeping Willow is most appropriately named, 

 for, in addition to the pensive drooping appearance of its 

 branches, it is common to'see little drops of water, which 

 stand like fallen tears upon the leaves. The willow will 

 grow in any but a dry soil, but most delights and best 

 thrives in the immediate neighbourhood of water. The 

 Willow, in poetical language, commonly introduces a 

 stream, or a forsaken lover : 



" Fluminibus salices, crassisque paludibus alni 

 Nascuntur ;" 



says Virgil. 



" Willows grow about rivers, and alders in muddy marshes." 



" We pass a gulf, in which the willows dip 



Their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink." 



COWFER. 



Chatterton describes 



" The willow, shadowing the bubbling brook." 



" Poplars and willows trembling o'er the floods," 



says Pope, in his translation of Homer's Odyssey. It 

 would be pleasant to imagine him sitting under his own 

 Willow as he wrote the line, but that, unfortunately, the 

 Odyssey was published before the tree was planted. 

 Churchill mentions, among other trees, 



" The willow weeping o'er the fatal wave, 

 Where many a lover finds a watery grave ; 

 The cypress, sacred held when lovers mourn 

 Their true love snatched away" 



