Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845 edition. Excerpt: ... "Wayfaring tree! what ancient claim Hast thou to that right pleasant name >. * * * A name, mctliinks, that surely fell From poet in some evening dell Wandering with fancies sweet." Morning and evening--in the hour of prime, and at that uncertain time when twilight's banner still floats flauntingly along the sunless west, and night pushes a slender cohort of dim and distant stars above the purpling uplands in the east--have we not greeted thee, 0 many-centuried and reverend friend, with this continually-recurring verse? And through years of change (years that have wrought so little change in thee) have we not come to love thee as a dear companion; to reckon thee among the "old familiar faces" we should grieve to miss; to invest thee with a life and sentiment appertinent rather to the moral and the inward, than the physical and outward world; and to note thy varying aspect as minutely as lovers watch the changeful countenance of those they dote upon I Spring weaves for thy aged limbs a subtle drapery of vivid green; summer deepens its hues; and autumn dyes the woof with russet, gold, and crimson, --" motley your only wear," until the tattered garb falls piecemeal to the ground, and the cold, keen skies of winter glitter above a mighty maze of leafless limbs and branches bare. But in all seasons we must claim for thee the attributes of majesty and beauty, suffering no change with changing vesture, and knowing no abatement with the diminution of thy commingling leaves. Wert thou not a sapling, a slender shoot from some chance-scattered acorn, when England's sod first felt the pressure of a Norman's foot? Did outlawed bowmen as they rustled past thee (thou wert a youngling even then) mingle with their discourse of venerie approving...