its visitants; yet no cause could be assigned for its temporary cessations, either from seasons or weather. If any difference was observed, it was thought to groan least when the weather was wet, and most when it was clear and frosty; but the sound at all times seemed to arise from the root.

Thus the groaning tree continued an object of astonishment during the space of eighteen or twenty months, to all the country around; and for the information of distant parts a pamphlet was drawn up containing a particular account of all the circumstances relating to it.

At length the owner of it, a gentleman of the name of Forbes, making too rash an experiment to discover the cause, bored a hole in its trunk. After this it never groaned. It was then rooted up, with a further view to making a discovery; but still nothing appeared which led to any investigation of the cause. It was universally, however, believed that there was no trick in the affair, but that some natural cause really existed, though never understood.

WILLIAM GILPIN, 1724-1807.

YEW-TREES.

There is a yew-tree, pride of Horton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst

Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,

Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands

Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Agincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or at Poitiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibers serpentine,

Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved-
Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the piny umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof

Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked

9*

With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes

May meet at noontide: Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight-Death the skeleton,

And Time the shadow-here to celebrate,

As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose

To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

LINES.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

FROM THE ICELANDIC EDDA.

I know an ash,

Named Ygg-drasill,

A stately tree,

With white dust strewed.

Thence come the dews

That wet the dales;

It stands aye green
O'er Urda's well.

Thence come the maids

Who much do know;

Three from the hall

Beneath the tree;

One they named Was,

And Being next,

The third Shall be,

On the shield they cut.

HENDERSON'S "Iceland."

LIME-TREES.

At Niestad, in the duchy of Wurtemburg, stood a lime, which was for many ages so remarkable that the city frequently took its denomination from it, being often called Neustadt ander grossen Linden, or Niestad near the Great Lime. Scarce any person passed near Niestad without visiting this tree; and many princes and great men did honor to it by building obelisks, columns, and monuments of various kinds around it, engraved with their arms and names, to which the dates were added, and often some device. Mr. Evelin, who procured copies of several of

* Neustadt.

these monumental inscriptions, tells us there were two hundred of them. The columns on which they were fixed served also to bear up the vast limbs of the tree, which began through age to become unwieldy. Thus this mighty plant stood many years in great state, the ornament of the town, the admiration of the country, and supported, as it were, by the princes of the empire. At length it felt the effects of war. Niestad was surrounded by an enemy, and the limbs of this venerable tree were mangled in wantonness by the besieging troops. Whether it still exists, I know not; but long after these injuries it stood a noble ruin, discovering, by the foundations of the several monuments, which formerly propped its spreading boughs, how far its limits had once extended.

* I shall next celebrate the Lime of Cleves. This, also, was a tree of great magnificence. It grew in an open plain, just at the entrance of the city, and was thought an object worthy to exercise the taste of the magistracy. The burgomaster of his day had it surveyed with great accuracy, and trimmed into eight broad, pyramidal- faces. Each corner was supported by a handsome stone pillar; and in the middle of the tree, among the branches, was cut a noble room, which the vast space contained within easily suffered, without injuring the regularity of any of the eight faces. To crown all, the top was curiously clipped into some kind of head, and adorned artificially, but in what manner, whether with the head of a lion, or a stag, a weather-cock, or a sun-dial, we are not told. It was something, however, in the highest style of Dutch taste. This tree was long the admiration and envy of all the states of Holland.

WILLIAM GILPIN, 1724-1807.

THE BIRCH-TREE.

Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine,
Among thy leaves that palpitate forever;

Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had prisoned,

The soul once of some tremulous, inland river,

Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah! dumb, dumb forever!

While all the forest, witched with slumberous moonshine,
Holds up its leaves in happy, happy silence;

Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse suspended

I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy islands,

And track thee wakeful still amid the wide-hung silence.

Upon the brink of some wood-nestled lakelet,

Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad,

Dripping about thy slim white stem, whose shadow

Slopes quivering down the water's dusky quiet,

Thou shrink'st, as on her bath's edge would some strolled Dryad.

Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers;

Thy white bark has their secrets in its keeping;
Reuben writes here the happy name of Patience,
And the lithe boughs hang murmuring and weeping
Above her, as she steals the mystery from thy keeping.

Thou art to me like my beloved maiden,

So frankly coy, so full of trembly confidences;
Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy pattering leaflets
Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o'er my senses,
And Nature gives me all her summer confidences.

Whether my heart with hope or sorrow tremble,
Thou sympathized still; wild and unquiet,
I fling me down; thy ripple, like a river,
Flows valley-ward, where calmness is, and by it
My heart is floated down into the land of quiet.

J. R. LOWELL.

THE HEMLOCK-TREE.

FROM THE GERMAN.

O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches! Green not alone in summer time,

But in the winter's frost and rime!

O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!

O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom!
To love me in prosperity,

And leave me in adversity

O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom !

The nightingale! the nightingale thou tak'st for thine example! So long as summer laughs she sings,

But in the autumn spreads her wings;

The nightingale! the nightingale thou tak`st for thine example!

The meadow-brook, the meadow-brook is mirror of thy falsehood! It flows so long as falls the rain;

In drought its springs soon dry again;

The meadow-brook, the meadow-brook is mirror of thy falsehood! Anonymous.

Translation of H. W. LONGFELLOW.

THE OAK.

IMITATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF METASTASIO.

The tall oak, towering to the skies,
The fury of the wind defies;
From age to age, in virtue strong,
Inured to stand, and suffer wrong.

O'erwhelmed at length, upon the plain
It puts forth wings, and sweeps the main;
The self-same foe undaunted braves,
And fights the winds upon the waves.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

ON AN ANCIENT OAK.

FROM THE GREEK OF ANTIPHILUS.

Hail, venerable boughs, that in mid sky
Spread broad and deep your leafy canopy!
Hail, cool, refreshing shade, abode most dear
To the sun-wearied traveler, wand'ring near!
Hail, close inwoven bow'rs, fit dwelling-place
For insect tribes, and man's imperial race!
Me, too, reclining in your green retreat,
Shield from the blazing day's meridian heat.
Translation of J. H. MERIVALE

WOOD NOTES.

And such I knew a forest seer,
A minstrel of the natural year,
Foreteller of the vernal ides,
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides-

A lover true, who knew by heart,
Each joy the mountain dales impart;
It seemed that Nature could not raise

A plant in any secret place;
In quaking bog, or snowy hill.
Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow, between the rocks,
In damp fields, known to bird and fox;