Weeping Willow. 
93 
many tears of repentance as the whole human race have shed 
and will shed on account of their sins from the time of David 
till the Judgment Day, so many did David weep in those forty 
days, all the while moaning forth psalms of penitence. The 
tears from his eyes formed two streams, which ran from the 
room into the garden. Where they sank into the ground 
sprang up two trees, the weeping willow and the frankincense- 
tree. The first weeps and mourns, and the second is inces¬ 
santly shedding big tears in commemoration of the sincere re¬ 
pentance of David. 
Hans C. Andersen, whose pathetic stories, if written for the 
young, never fail to delight children of a larger growth, has a 
most affecting tale entitled “ Under the Willow-Tree,” in which 
the tree plays a part almost human in its interest. He is a 
writer who frequently avails himself of the poetic imagery which 
florigraphy so profusely proffers. 
In Wiffen’s translation of Garcillasso, he thus renders a 
sonnet, in which the Spanish poet dedicates the willow to his 
mistress: 
“For Daphne’s laurel Phoebus gave his voice; 
The towering poplar charmed stern Hercules; 
The myrtle sweet, whose gifted flowers rejoice 
Young hearts in love, did most warm Venus please; 
The little green willow is my Fledri’s choice: 
She gathers it amidst a thousand trees. 
Thus laurel, poplar, and sweet myrtle now, 
Where’er it grows, shall to the willow bow.” 
Well might the poet speak of the “little green willow,” for, 
as Linnaeus remarks of the herbaceous willow, “amongst all 
trees this is the smallest.” Dr. Clarke, in his most interesting 
“Norwegian Travels,” thus introduces this fairy-like treeling: 
“We soon recognized some of our old Lapland acquaintances, 
such as Betula nana, with its minute leaves like silver pennies, 
mountain birch, and the dwarf Alpine species of willow, of 
which half a dozen trees, with all their branches, leaves, flowers, 
and roots, might be compressed within two of the pages of a 
lady’s pocket-book without coming in contact with each other. 
“ After our return to England, specimens of the Salix lier- 
bacea were given to our friends, which, when framed and glazed, 
had the appearance of miniature drawings. The author, in col¬ 
lecting them for his herbary, has frequently compressed twenty 
of these trees between two of the pages of a duodecimo volume.” 
