The Elm is frequently referred to by the poets. Wordsworth thus speaks of a grove of them:
Upon that open level stood a grove,
The wished-for port to which my course was bound.
Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom
Spread by a brotherhood of lofty Elms,
Appeared a roofless hut.
In The Church Yard among the Mountains, he introduces one that seems to be the pride of the village:
—A wide-spread Elm
Stands in our valley, named the JOYFUL TREE;
From dateless usage which our peasants hold
Of giving welcome to the first of May,
By dances round its trunk.
And again:
—The Joyful Elm,
Around whose trunk the maidens dance in May.
Dr. Hunter supposes that the Elm is a native of England. Philips, however, does not agree with this; but, admitting that the tree was known in England as early as the Saxon times, observes, that this does not prove the Elm to be indigenous to the soil, confuted as it is by Nature, which rarely allows it to propagate its species in this country according to her common rules; while in other countries, where the seed falls, young plants spring up as commonly as the oaks in Britain.
