The Popular Poplar Tree

A tree-climbing poem

The upper branches of a cottonwood (poplar) tree -- probably

a plains cottonwood, as this photo was taken in Colorado

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonhurd/ / CC BY 2.0

How would it would feel to climb high in a poplar tree, with gusts of wind swaying the branches? Oh, my, I am definitely too old for that! It gives me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach to think about it.

The Popular Poplar Tree

When the great wind sets things whirling
And rattles the window panes,
And blows the dust in giants
and dragons tossing their manes;
When the willows have waves like water,
And children are shouting with glee;
When the pines are alive and the larches,---
Then hurrah for you and me,
In the tip o' the top' o the top o' the tip of
the popular poplar tree!

Don't talk about Jack and the Beanstalk---
He did not climb half so high!
And Alice in all her travels
Was never so near the sky!
Only the swallow, a-skimming
The storm-cloud over the lea,
Knows how it feels to be flying---
When the gusts come strong and free---
In the tip o' the top' o the top o' the tip of
the popular poplar tree!

---Blanch Willis Howard

Maybe the poet's poplar was popular because it was so easy to climb. Or maybe she just enjoyed the sound of the similar words.

I came across this little poem in Arbor Day Leaves: A Complete Programme for Arbor Day Observance, Including Readings, Recitations, Music & General Information. This booklet was compiled by N. H. Egleston of the USDA Forest Service and published in 1893 by American Book Company of New York.

Hear The Music Of The Pines

Poem by Timothy Thomas Fortune

Hear The Music Of The Pines

Hear the music of the pines­
Murmuring through the climbing vines,
Sighing through the tree tops high,
Floating upward to the sky,
Then descending where I lie­
Hear the music of the pines!


What sweet thoughts the music brings,
What new gladness from it springs­
As reclining, in a dream,
Watch I, listless, a sunbeam
Dancing on the silvery stream­
What sweet thoughts the music brings!


Hear the music of the pines!
How it 'round my fancy twines­
While fragrances of flowers fill
All the pulses of my will
As I, lingering, linger still­
Hear the music of the pines!


by Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856-1928).



Born into slavery in Florida, Timothy Thomas Fortune was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. He became an influential journalist and editor, associated with some of the leading black publications of the day. I suspect this poem is a remembrance of native pine trees in Florida. His mention of "the climbing vines" seems to suggest the exuberant plant growth of a warm climate.

The pine trees in the above photo grow on the grounds of the Breathitt Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Hopkinsville, KY. I didn't examine them closely, but they are probably Eastern white pines (Pinus strobus). These two and their fellow pines around the property boundaries were probably planted in the 1970s around the time that the lab was built.

November Night

Listen...
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.

Poem by Adelaide Crapsey. Rrom The New Poetry: An Anthology,
edited by Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin Henderson.
Published in New York by The Macmillan Company in 1917.
morgueFile photo by S. Whitmore

The yew-tree of Lorton Vale

An ancient tree immortalized by William Wordsworth

Take a few minutes from your busy day and enjoy this description of a wonderful tree. This is excerpted from William Wordsworth's poem, "Yew-Trees." As you read it, it's helpful to remember that yew wood was used to make bows and arrows.

THERE is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loathe 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 Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
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...

-- from "Yew-Trees" by William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

The yew tree of Lorton Vale still stands, though part of it broke away in a storm. Previously, it was 27 feet in circumference; now it is is only 13 feet. It is over 1000 years old.

You can read some of Wordsworth's commentary about yew trees at Everypoet.com.

The Lorton Vale yew is believed to be the tree that Quaker preacher George Fox (1624-1691) mentions in his autobiography. The event he describes took place in 1653, and the soldiers he mentions were from Oliver Cromwell's army.

We came the next day to the steeple-house where James Lancaster had appointed the meeting. There were at this meeting twelve soldiers and their wives, from Carlisle; and the country people came in, as if it were to a fair. I lay at a house somewhat short of the place, so that many Friends got thither before me. When I came I found James Lancaster speaking under a yew tree which was so full of people that I feared they would break it down.

I looked about for a place to stand upon, to speak unto the people, for they lay all up and down, like people at a leaguer. After I was discovered, a professor asked if I would not go into the church? I, seeing no place abroad convenient to speak to the people from, told him, Yes; whereupon the people rushed in, so that when I came the house and pulpit were so full I had much ado to get in. Those that could not get in stood abroad about the walls.

When the people were settled I stood up on a seat, and the Lord opened my mouth to declare His everlasting Truth and His everlasting day.George Fox (1624-1691)

About a century later, John Wesley, the leader of a religious movement called Methodism, preached under the Lorton Vale yew as well.

The leaves of Taxus baccata are highly poisonous and they remain poisonous even if they are brown and lying on the ground. For that reason, livestock must not be allowed to graze around a yew-tree. The seeds are also highly poisonous. However, the pulp of the berry-like cone that contains the seed is sweet and is enjoyed by birds.

Related webpages:

• The Vale of Lorton, Cumbria - Includes a photo of the Lorton Vale yew which survives to this day.
• Yew - An interesting page by Anna Fraser with descriptions of many traditions associated with the yew as well as a summary of facts.

Credit: Yew leaves & cone image is from Wikimedia Commons.

Tree of My Life

Poem by Edward Rowland Sill
(1841 - 1887)

WHEN I was yet but a child, the gardener gave me a tree,

A little slim elm, to be set wherever seemed good to me

What a wonderful thing it seemed! with its lace-edged leaves uncurled,

And its span-long stem, that should grow to the grandest tree in the world!

So I searched all the garden round, and out over field and hill,

But not a spot could I find that suited my wayward will.

I would have it bowered in the grove, in a close and quiet vale;

I would rear it aloft on the height, to wrestle with the gale.

Then I said, "I will cover its roots with a little earth by the door,

And there it shall live and wait, while I search for a place once more."

But still I could never find it, the place for my wondrous tree,

And it waited and grew by the door, while years passed over me;

Till suddenly, one fine day, I saw it was grown too tall,

And its roots gone down too deep, to be ever moved at all.

So here it is growing still, by the lowly cottage door;

Never so grand and tall as I dreamed it would be of yore,

But it shelters a tired old man in its sunshine-dappled shade,

The children's pattering feet round its knotty knees have played,

Dear singing birds in a storm sometimes take refuge there,

And the stars through its silent boughs shine gloriously fair.

"So here it is growing still, by the lowly cottage door..."
Delare Cottage, Dighton, Bristol County, MA
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division,
 Reproduction Number HABS, MASS,3-DIT,6-1