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No light of joy hath o’er thee broken, 
But—like those harps, whose heay’nly skill 
Of slavery, dark as thine, hath spoken— 
Thou hang’st upon the willows still. 
The weeping willow is a native of the east, 
and is greatly admired for its drooping pendu- 
lous branches, waving over our lakes and 
streams. 
Thus o’er our streams do eastern willows lean 
In pensive guise ; whose grief inspiring shade, 
Love has to melancholy sacred made. 
DELILLE. 
Ir grows wild on the coast of Persia, and 
is common in China. The celebrated spe- 
cimen in Pope’s garden at Twickenham, is 
said to have been the first introduced into 
England ; but this we believe to be erroneous. 
The poet chanced to be present on the opening 
of a package which came from Spain, and ob- 
serving that the sticks had some vegetation, 
fancied they might produce something which 
we did not possess in England. With this 
idea he planted a cutting, from whence sprang 
the parent tree of many of our finest and most 
admired specimens. 


