With leaves and fallings most they spread the ground;
The hollow valleys echo to the sound;
Unmoved, the royal plant their fury mocks,
Or shaken, clings more closely to the rocks.
The following is another metaphor of a somewhat similar kind, employed by Homer in the Iliad (xvii. 57), which bears a great resemblance to the lovely one found in the 103rd Psalm, to which reference has been made above. It runs as follows:—
As the young olive in some sylvan scene,
Crowned by fresh fountains with eternal green,
Lifts the gay head, in snowy flowerets fair,
And plays and dances to the gentle air;
When lo! a whirlwind from high heaven invades