St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1899-04-26
POETRY AND TREES.

and religion, have become so associated
and intertwined with trees and tree life
that we seem to have forgotten the part
which plants play in our lives and our
literature. So indissolubly allied are
trees with the history of our thought
that we have no poet Of importance sa-
cred or profane, from the time of Homer
down to Holmes, who has not sung of
the tree and found in it an emotional
inspiration
The Bible abounds in illusions to
trees of all kinds. Its poets would have
been without their most effective meta
phors if they had not known the "oaks
of Bashan, the "cedars Of Lebanon"
and the willows by the water
courses" Zaccheus climbed sycamore
tree, and the almond tree is mentioned
again and again by the sacred poets,
while the fig tree furnishes basis for
many Scriptural comparison. What
more beautiful promise could be given
Israel than the declaration that in
stead of the thorn shall come up the fir
tree, and instead of the brier shall come
up the myrtle treeT'
Ii was under the rustling leaves of
the plane tree in the now far famed
Academeia of Athens, that Socrates and
Plato sat with their young Grecian
scholars and discussed the old problems
as to what were truth and beauty and
Justice. To the childish Greek fancy
every growing tree had its living dryad.
1t was a plane tree that Agamemnon
planted at Delphos, and it was plane
tree that SO charmed Xerxes with its
beauty that he wasted one whole day
during his invasion of Greece, and lost
a battle in consequence.
1t was Empedocles who said that the
souls of the highest virtue passed into
trees, and the old tale of Philemon and
Baucis assigned them final home in
trees, as a reward for the good deeds
they had done for years. Another beau
tiful legend says the penitent Myrrha
became tree, and the drops which still
fall from the bark (myrrh) are her tears.
An old Maori myth represents heaven
and earth as once joined in an embrace
20 close that their children had no place
to dwell But Tanemabuta, the father
of trees, pushed them asunder with his
arms.
In the misty twilight Of Teutonic
and Celtic civilization trees were an
object of worship, and sacrifices were
made in groves. The oak was sacred to
the Druid, as the pine was to the prim-
tive Scandinavian. In Morse cosmogony
the world tree, Yggdrasil, had its foil
age in the clouds, the stars were its
fruit and the sea its bed. From its foot
bubbled the fountain of life, and from
its branches the blessing Of fire was first
brought to man. This tree was appar-
emily an ash, and from it, another leg
end says, Odin created Adam, and
from the elm Eve.
Passing from mythology to poetry
proper we find trees endeared in tn
affection of all poets. Even in the tim
of Spenser they were sung about, ant
in 1.-THE Faerie Queene" we find men
ton made of
The saying Pine the Cedar proud and tall;
The vinepropp Elme; the Poplar never dry
The builder Oake, sble king of FORESTS all;
The Aspine good for stoves; the Cypress
funerall.
The LAUREL, need of mightie conquerours,
And poets sage the Fire that weepeth still
The Willow, worne Of forlorne Paramours
The Eugh, obedient to the bender's will;
The Birch, for shafts; the Sallow for the mil
The Myrrh sweete-bleeding in the bite
wound;
The Warlike Beech; the Ash for nothing ill;
The fruitful Olive; and the Plantane round;
The carver Home; the Maple seldom inwar
sound.
One Of Ben Jonson's poems has tn
following reference to the oaks, eve
at that early time favorite with poets
Not merely growing like tree
In bulk doth make man better DO
Or standing long an oak three hundred year
To fall log at last dry, bald and scar.
But it is, of course, in Shakespeal
that we find the greatest lover Of I'll
tree in Elizabethan times. With his III
erring grasp of the finest and most sil
nifcant figures he naturally maxi
great use of the tree in his practic
illustrations. He fully realized no
trees were able to beautify landscap
for in "Titus Andronicus" he speaks
A barren, detested vale, you see, 1t is;
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn al
lean,
O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe.
Such plays as "As You Like 1t" a
made up of eulogies Of woodland Ii
and the forest.
Milton, too, has his passing referenc
10 trees, and in the fourth book
Paradise Lost" speaks affectionately
Cedar and pine and fir and branching pail
A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade woody theater
OF stateliest view.
Thomson Seasons" abounds in {
lusions to trees, all of them shown
this poets great love for woodlal
scenes and out of door life:
Welcome ye shades Ye bowery thickets, ha
Ye lofty pines Ye venerable oaksl
Ye ashes wild, resounding DER the steepl
Delicious in your shelter to the soul
Cowper protests that
No tree IN all the grove but has its charm
Though each its hue peculiar,
and Shelley beautifully pictures {
calmness Of the summer woods in |
poem "The Recollection
Now nil the traa tons Inv aeiaan
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.
But coming to times quite modern
is Tennyson and Wordsworth who {
the greatest lovers and shrewdest {
servers of trees. Their poems are inl;