Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Trees
The groves were God’s first temples.
Bryant.—Forest Hymn.
See yonder leafless trees against the sky,
How they diffuse themselves into the air,
And, ever subdividing, separate
Limbs into branches, branches into twigs,
As if they loved the element, and hasted
To dissipate their being into it.
Emerson.—Poems: Nature.
The oak roars when a high wind wrestles with it; the beech shrieks; the elm sends forth a long, deep groan; the ash pours out moans of thrilling anguish.
Thomas Starr King.—The White Hills: The Pemigewasset Valley.
This is the forest primeval.
Longfellow.—Evangeline, Part I. Prologue.
Near the lake where drooped the willow,
Long time ago!
George P. Morris.—Near the Lake.
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I’ll protect it now.
George P. Morris.—Woodman, Spare that Tree! (1830.)
A faint, low murmur, rising and falling on the wind. Now it comes rolling in upon me wave after wave of sweet, solemn music. There was a grand organ swell: and now it dies away as into the infinite distance; but I still hear it—whether with ear or spirit I know not—the very ghost of sound…. It is the voice of the pines yonder—a sort of morning song of praise to the Giver of life and Maker of beauty.
Whittier.—My Summer with Dr. Singletary, Chap. V.