I will now repeat to you some verses describing the oak in its state of full growth, or rather of beginning to decay, with the various animals living upon it—and then we will walk.
“See where yon Oak its awful structure rears,
The massy growth of twice a hundred years;
Survey his rugged trunk with moss o’ergrown,
His lusty arms in rude disorder thrown,
His forking branches wide at distance spread,
And dark’ning half the sky, his lofty head.
A mighty castle, built by Nature’s hands,
Peopled by various living tribes, he stands.
His airy top the clamorous rooks invest,