And poets sage; the Firre that weepeth still;
The Willow, worne of forlorne paramours;
The Eugh, obedient to the bender’s will;
The Birch for shaftes; the Sallow for the mill;
The Mirrhe, sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound;
The warlike Beech; the Ash for nothing ill;
The fruitful Olive, and the Platane round;
The corner Holme; the Maple seldom inward sound.”
The sapling pine was the tree of which staffs were made; the builders’ oak was the white oak; the sallow was a kind of willow; the platane was the plane, and the holm was the holly. The olive may have been some tree now known by another name.
The beech tree at one time within my recollection was almost extinct in Plymouth woods, and was rarely found except on islands in the woodland ponds. I have heard that the same was true of the beech in the Middlesex Fells, which suggests that woods fires which could not reach the islands may have thinned the beeches out. The fact that in recent years the beech is again making its appearance in the Plymouth Park and other protected localities, adds force to the suggestion.