BEECH-TREE. 109 



even before Virgil sang, or Shakspeare haunted the wild 

 wood ; and many a tender thought would have been trans- 

 mitted to posterity had men possessed the power of em- 

 bodying them. Customs which naturally originate from 

 the feelings of the human heart must ever have prevailed, 

 whether among groves of olive beneath Italian skies, or 

 in the deep beech-woods of your fatherland. Poetry has, 

 also, its imperishable associations, and many a lone tree 

 awakens those deep emotions which are kindled whenever 

 memory recalls the creations of poetic genius. How 

 appropriate, therefore, the elegant effusion of one of your 

 own poets, when, wandering in this ravine, he thus per- 

 sonified a noble beech, which the wood-ranger had marked 

 with his axe : 



" Thrice twenty summers I have stood 

 In bloomless, fruitless solitude, 

 Since childhood in my pleasant hower 

 First spent its sweet and sportive hour ; 

 Since youthful lovers in my shade 

 Their vows of truth and rapture made, 



