Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/213

Rh we have the portentous image of the angel of death walking all alone "beneath a yew."

Our limits forbid more than a mere enumerative mention of other well-known trees, whose memory Mr. Tennyson has rendered sweeter to all future generations of tree-lovers. "Immemorial elms," "perky larches and pines," "laburnums, dropping-wells of fire," elders, hollies, "the pillared dusk of sounding sycamores," "dry-tongued laurels," "slender acacias"—all these and many others are to be found within the four corners of his poems. One only remains, the oak—"sole king of forests all;" and, as Mr. Tennyson has celebrated the praises of the monarch of the woods at great length in the "Talking Oak," we shall add a few words on that charming composition by way of conclusion.

As is well known, the poem takes the form of a colloquy between an ancient oak, which formed a meeting-place for two lovers, and the young gentleman in the case. He comes to question the tree about his lady-love, who had visited the hallowed spot in his absence. And Landor himself, in his happiest vein, never conceived a more exquisite imaginary conversation. Here, in sportive phrase and bantering talk, is the whole philosophy of forest-life set forth with a poetic felicity, saucy humor, and scientific precision of language, each admirable of its kind. The poem is literally a love-idyl and botanic treatise combined, and never, surely, were lovers and science—January and May, might one say—so delightfully harmonized, conveying, too, to those who have eyes to see and hearts to understand, glimpses of a spiritual interpretation of Nature, undreamt of by Pope and his school. Thus pleasantly does the old oak of "Sumner Chace" discourse to Walter of Olivia's charms; and the reader will not fail to notice the skillful way in which the poet's practical acquaintance with trees is turned to account:

and then, with a warmth of praise unusual and almost improper in such a venerable inhabitant of the forest, he continues:

Farther on, the not ungrateful lover invokes all atmospheric and