Yet the Muses declare, after diligent search,
That no tree can be found to compare with the Birch.
The Birch, they affirm, is the true tree of knowledge,
Revered at each school and remember'd at college.
Though Virgil's famed tree might produce, as its fruit,
A crop of vain dreams, and strange whims on each shoot,
Yet the Birch on each bough, on the top of each switch,
Bears the essence of grammar and eight parts of speech.
'Mongst the leaves are conceal'd more than mem'ry can mention,
All cases, all genders, all forms of declension.