100 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 
found wondrous trees, some filled with fruit and bearing 
sweet incense. Of one of these he says: 
‘« Hven as a fir tapers upward from bough to bough, 
So downardly did that 
I think in order that no one it might climb ; 
The while among the verdant leaves 
Mine eyes I riveted as he is wont to do 
Who spends the day in watching little birds ”’ 
When Eneas wished to descend to the realms of 
Pluto to consult his father Anchises, the Sybil directed 
him to propitiate Proserpine by the gift of a golden 
branch cut from a tree in a grove sacred to Diana and 
Apollo. 
Arriving at the Elysian fields after passing the Plu- 
tonian region of darkness and desolation, he saw multi- 
tudes of the blessed reclining in the shade of wide 
spreading trees, and. the hillsides and the plains were 
adorned with beautiful groves, in which Greeks and 
Trojans pursued their games. Not only the golden 
streets and a river of life make beautiful the New Jeru- 
salem, but we read in Revelations, “ In the midst of the 
street of it, and on either side of the river was the tree 
of life which bore twelve manner of fruits and yielded 
her fruit every month ; and the leaves of the tree were 
for the healing of the nation.” 
This reverential and tender regard for trees has been 
implanted in the minds of all imaginative people, ancient 
and. modern, sacred and profane; the pure pleasure 
derived from their contemplation is peculiarly a part of 
the poet’s dower. 
