WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell
(@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 2, No. 26: April 26, 2023
Treelore in Prose and Verse for Arbor Day: Friday, April 28
Excerpt from Chapter 22 of The Age of Fable
By Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867)
The
wood-nymphs, Pan's partners in the dance, were but one class of nymphs. There
were beside them the Naiads, who presided over brooks and fountains, the
Oreads, nymphs of mountains and grottos, and the Nereids, sea-nymphs. The three
last named were immortal, but the wood-nymphs, called Dryads or Hamadryads,
were believed to perish with the trees which had been their abode and with
which they had come into existence.
“Dryad”
By Mary Carolyn Davies (fl. ca. 1918-1924)
Dryad,
hidden in this tree!
Break your
bonds and talk to me!
No one’s
watching, only peep
From your
cave! The town’s asleep!
No one knows
I stand here, so
Come! for
they will never know!
Tell me what
you think of here
When the Moon
is sharp and clear,
When the
clouds are over you,
When the
ground is wet with dew.
Dryad, are
you happy, say!
Do you like
to live this way?
I will keep
your secrets well,
I will
never, never tell!
Dryad,
hidden in our tree,
Come, oh,
come and talk to me!
“Trees”
By Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
I think that
I shall never see
A poem
lovely as a tree.
A tree whose
hungry mouth is prest
Against the Earth's
sweet flowing breast;
A tree that
looks at God all day,
And lifts
her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that
may in Summer wear
A nest of
robins in her hair;
Upon whose
bosom snow has lain;
Who
intimately lives with rain.
Poems are
made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Above: An 1847 depiction of the
“world-tree” Yggdrasil from Old Norse mythology by Oluf Olufsen Bagge, as
described in the Icelandic Prose Edda. (Image Credit: Public
Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
An Arboreal Reflection from the Editor
Reprinted from Cursus Honorum V: 8 (March
2005)
When I was growing up in
Edwardsville, Illinois, a tornado tore through our neighborhood and destroyed
many trees throughout our subdivision. My favorite tree, a venerable box elder
on the corner of our lot, was badly damaged – many of its branches had been
torn off by the whirlwind. The insurance adjuster was advising us to cut it
down, but I argued forcefully for saving it, be-cause I intuited that, given
time, it would grow back to regain its former majestic stature. The tree was
spared, and now, when we drive by our former home, we see it thriving more than
ever before.
Trees are like people – we
should never give up on them, especially when they've been buffeted by the
storms of life.
“An April Night”
By Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)
The Moon
comes up o'er the deeps of the woods,
And the
long, low dingles that hide in the hills,
Where the
ancient beeches are moist with buds
Over the
pools and the whimpering rills;
And with her
the mists, like dryads that creep
From their
oaks, or the spirits of pine-hid springs,
Who hold,
while the eyes of the world are asleep,
With the
wind on the hills their gay revellings.
Down on the
marshlands with flicker and glow
Wanders
Will-o'-the-Wisp through the night,
Seeking for
witch-gold lost long ago
By the
glimmer of goblin lantern-light.
The night is
a sorceress, dusk-eyed and dear,
Akin to all
eerie and elfin things,
Who weaves
about us in meadow and mere
The spell of
a hundred vanished Springs.
“Orpheus”
By William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Orpheus with
his lute made trees
And the
mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music
plants and flowers
Ever sprung;
as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything
that heard him play,
Even the
billows of the sea,
Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet
music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
In this 1595 painting by
Sebastiaen Vrancx (1573–1647), Orpheus is enchanting the woodland creatures and
the trees of the forest with his mystical melodies. (Image Credit: Public
Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
“Orpheus and Eurydice”
Excepted from Chapter 24 of The Age of Fable
By Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867)
Editor’s
Note: Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife, was a dryad. 😊
Orpheus was the son of Apollo
and the Muse Calliope. He was presented by his father with a lyre and taught to
play upon it, which he did to such perfection that nothing could withstand the
charm of his music. Not only his fellow-mortals, but wild beasts were softened
by his strains, and gathering round him laid by their fierceness, and stood
entranced with his lay. Nay, the very trees and rocks were sensible to the
charm. The former crowded round him and the latter relaxed somewhat of their
hardness, softened by his notes.
Hymen had been called to bless
with his presence the nuptials of Orpheus with Eurydice; but though he
attended, he brought no happy omens with him. His very torch smoked and brought
tears into their eyes. In coincidence with such prognostics, Eurydice, shortly
after her marriage, while wandering with the nymphs, her companions, was seen
by the shepherd Aristaeus, who was struck by her beauty and made advances to
her. She fled, and in flying trod upon a snake in the grass, was bitten in the
foot, and died. Orpheus sang his grief to all who breathed the upper air, both
gods and men, and finding it all unavailing resolved to seek his wife in the
regions of the dead. He descended by a cave situated on the side of the
promontory of Taenarus and arrived at the Stygian realm. He passed through
crowds of ghosts and presented himself before the throne of Pluto and
Proserpine. Accompanying the words with the lyre, he sung, “O deities of the
under-world, to whom all we who live must come, hear my words, for they are
true. I come not to spy out the secrets of Tartarus, nor to try my strength
against the three-headed dog with snaky hair who guards the entrance. I come to
seek my wife, whose opening years the poisonous viper's fang has brought to an
untimely end. Love has led me here, Love, a god all powerful with us who dwell
on the earth, and, if old traditions say true, not less so here. I implore you
by these abodes full of terror, these realms of silence and uncreated things,
unite again the thread of Eurydice's life. We all are destined to you, and
sooner or later must pass to your domain. She too, when she shall have filled
her term of life, will rightly be yours. But till then grant her to me, I
beseech you. If you deny me, I cannot return alone; you shall triumph in the
death of us both.”
As he sang these tender strains,
the very ghosts shed tears. Tantalus, in spite of his thirst, stopped for a
moment his efforts for water, Ixion's wheel stood still, the vulture ceased to
tear the giant's liver, the daughters of Danaus rested from their task of
drawing water in a sieve, and Sisyphus sat on his rock to listen. Then for the
first time, it is said, the cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears.
Proserpine could not resist, and Pluto himself gave way. Eurydice was called.
She came from among the new-arrived ghosts, limping with her wounded foot.
Orpheus was permitted to take her away with him on one condition, that he
should not turn around to look at her till they should have reached the upper
air. Under this condition they proceeded on their way, he leading, she
following, through passages dark and steep, in total silence, till they had
nearly reached the outlet into the cheerful upper world, when Orpheus, in a
moment of forgetfulness, to assure himself that she was still following, cast a
glance behind him, when instantly she was borne away. Stretching out their arms
to embrace each other, they grasped only the air! Dying now a second time, she
yet cannot reproach her husband, for how can she blame his impatience to behold
her? “Farewell,” she said, “a last farewell,” – and was hurried away, so fast
that the sound hardly reached his ears.
Orpheus endeavored to follow
her, and besought permission to return and try once more for her release; but
the stern ferryman repulsed him and refused passage. Seven days he lingered
about the brink, without food or sleep; then bitterly accusing of cruelty the
powers of Erebus, he sang his complaints to the rocks and mountains, melting
the hearts of tigers and moving the oaks from their stations. He held himself
aloof from womankind, dwelling constantly on the recollection of his sad
mischance. The Thracian maidens tried their best to captivate him, but he
repulsed their advances. They bore with him as long as they could; but finding
him insensible one day, excited by the rites of Bacchus, one of them exclaimed,
“See yonder our despiser!” and threw at him her javelin. The weapon, as soon as
it came within the sound of his lyre, fell harmless at his feet. So did also
the stones that they threw at him. But the women raised a scream and drowned
the voice of the music, and then the missiles reached him and soon were stained
with his blood. The Maenads tore him limb from limb, and threw his head and his
lyre into the river Hebrus, down which they floated, murmuring sad music, to
which the shores responded a plaintive symphony. The Muses gathered up the
fragments of his body and buried them at Libethra, where the nightingale is
said to sing over his grave more sweetly than in any other part of Greece. His
lyre was placed by Jupiter among the stars. His shade passed a second time to
Tartarus. where he sought out his Eurydice and embraced her with eager arms.
They roam the happy fields together now, sometimes he is leading, sometimes
she; and Orpheus gazes as much as he will upon her, no longer incurring a
penalty for a thoughtless glance.
