As aspens show the light and shade.”
Gerard, in a way scarcely flattering to the sex, compares the leaves to women’s tongues, “which seldom cease wagging;” but Sir Walter Scott restores the balance in the lines:—
“O woman! in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made,
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou.”
ASPENS
Populus tremuloides