BIRCH (Betula alba verrucosa) In June
BIRCH (Betula alba verrucosa) In December
Inseparably associated as the birch is with Scottish landscape, poets and painters have never wearied of honouring it. The late David MacWhirter got its beauty rather on the brain, and one turned rather tired of what became a mannerism in his work. Hamilton of Bangour never rang his quaintly iterative changes so tenderly as in his ballad, The Braes of Yarrow, the tragedy of a maiden with two lovers. The lovers fight, and one falls—
The comliest swain
That e'er pu'd birks on the braes o' Yarrow.
The survivor presses his court, trying in vain to persuade the girl to leave Tweedside and come to his home beside Yarrow.
Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the grass—
Yellow on Yarrow's braes the gowan;
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowin'.
"Flows Yarrow sweet?" she argues with him—
Flows Yarrow sweet? as sweet, as sweet flows Tweed;
As green its grass, its gowan as yellow;
As sweet smells on its braes the birk,
The apple frae its rock as mellow.