228 VOICES PROM THE WOODLANDS. 



tendants, and guests to welcome them; and I have seen 

 the same young bride and bridegroom repass that threshold 

 in after years, yet not with light and joyous steps, but 

 borne separately, with nodding plumes and palls, and mutes, 

 and mourners following two and two. My old branches 

 have waved over many such, from the days of Elizabeth 

 to the present time; many a bridal party and many a 

 funeral has passed beside me, and I have noted the won- 

 drous changes that years have wrought. 



Yet still I stand in my umbrageous majesty, rising to 

 an elevation of one hundred feet, and containing eight 

 hundred and seventy-five feet of timber in my solid bulk ; 

 nineteen horizontal branches, from sixty to seventy feet 

 long, form a magnificent canopy of waving boughs ; and 

 the straight and taper column, by which they are sus- 

 tained, measures seventeen feet at three feet above the 

 ground. 



My leaves support a great variety of evanescent insects, 

 such as moths and butterflies, with others that find a 



