esses the
BIRCH'S pendent beauty, till it droops--as we think--like that of a
being overcome with grief! Seen standing all along by themselves, with
something of a foreign air, and an exotic expression, yet not unwelcome
or obtrusive among our indigenous fair forest-trees, twinkling to the
touch of every wandering wind, and restless even amidst what seemeth now
to be everlasting rest, we cannot choose but admire that somewhat darker
grove of columnar Lombardy POPLARS. How comes it that some SYCAMORES so
much sooner than others salute the Spring? Yonder are some but budding,
as if yet the frost lay on the honey-dew that protects the beamy germs.
There are others warming into expansion, half-budded and half-leaved,
with a various light of colour visible in that sun-glint distinctly from
afar. And in that nook of the still sunnier south, trending eastward, a
few are almost in their full summer foliage, and soon will the bees be
swarming among their flowers. A HORSE CHESTNUT has a grand oriental air,
and like a satrap uplifts his green banner yellowing in the light--that
shows he belongs to the line of the Prophet. ELMS are then most
magnificent--witness Christ-Church walk--when they hang over head in
heaven like the chancel of a cathedral. Yet here, too, are the
august--and methinks "a dim religious light" is in that vault of
branches just vivifying to the Spring, and though almost bare, tinged
with a coming hue that ere long will be majestic brightness. Those old
OAKS seem sullen in the sunshine, and slow to put forth their power,
like the Spirit of the Land they emblem. But they, too, are relaxing
from their wonted sternness--soon will that faint green be a glorious
yellow; and while the gold-laden boughs stoop boldly to the storms with
which they love to dally, bounds not the heart of every Briton to the
music of his national anthem,

"Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rules the waves!"

The ASH is a manly tree, but "dreigh and dour" in the leafing; and
yonder stands an Ash-grove like a forest of ships with bare poles in the
docks of Liverpool. Yet like the town of Kilkenny

"It shines well where it stands;"

and the bare grey-blue of the branches, apart but not repulsive, like
some cunning discord in music, deepens the harmony of the Isle of
Groves. Contrast is one of the finest of all the laws of association, as
every philosopher, poet, and peasant kens. At this moment, it brings, by
the bonds of beauty, tho