198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



just before emerging from their green covering, and the time of their 

 development, are registered with minute accuracy : 



" But, Alice, what an hour was that, 



When, after roving in the woods 

 ('Twas April then), I came and sat 



Below the chestnuts, when their buds 

 Were glistening in the breezy blue! " 



" Glistening " is the exact epithet here. The early foliation of the 

 chestnut and elm we find in the exquisite fragment " Sir Launcelot 

 and Queen Guinevere." The lines on the chestnut are very charac- 

 teristic : 



" In curves the yellowing river ran, 

 And drooping chestnut-buds began 

 To spread into the perfect fan, 



Above the teeming ground." 



This, with the similar remark on the elm, corresponds to the order of 

 Nature, and is nowhere better or more beautifully exemplified than in 

 Kensington Gardens every April. 



So far as we have been able to discover, there is only a single line 

 devoted to the birch. It is to be found in " Amphion," that singular 

 reproduction, in sylvan form, of the mythological legend. It is inter- 

 esting to notice, by-the-way, that, in the later editions, the verse in 

 which the birch is mentioned is omitted, and another substituted. As 

 a whole, the latter is doubtless the more musical of the two, but we 

 are sorry to lose the apt and charming characterization of " the lady 

 of the woods." For the curious in Tennysoniana we print both : 



"The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair, 

 The bramble cast her berry, 

 The gin within the jumper 

 Began to make him merry." 



• ••••• 



" The linden broke her ranks and rent 

 The woodbine-wreaths that bind her, 

 And down the middle, buzz! she went 

 With all her bees behind her." 



Of all the poets who have sung the praises of the birch, Coleridge, 

 Keats, and, preeminently Sir Walter Scott, none of them has surpassed 

 the initial line of the first stanza in condensed and subtile expressive- 

 ness. Scott's is somewhat similar, although not quite so good : 



" Where weeps the birch with silver bark, 

 And long dishevelled hair." 



" Dishevelled," implying disorders and entanglement, does not convey 

 a correct idea of the foliage of the birch. " Swang her fragrant hair " 

 is decidedly better. 



The fullness and ripeness of the poet's knowledge of trees are amply 



