Oak

“ An oak draws a long, snaky shadow from side to side, with the head and neck of a sitting dove among the leaves. And there, too, are the stars and the moon, brought down into that homely company of trees and flowers by the shining water, and preserved there in strangely woven patterns; just as in your mind you mingle visions of the world, the past, the imaginary, with your own domestic surroundings and acts, and a changing mood, like a puff of wind across the pool, erases them. ”

“ Plant it; watch it as it develops into a mighty, towering oak, which, in its majesty of strength seems to bid defiance to the very heavens. Beneath its massive branches and grateful shade the weary traveller may pause to rest his limbs and seek refuge from the heat of day. ”

“ A great oak stands at the meadow's neck, an oak with gnarled and wandering roots where a man may rest, for it is bare of daffodils save for a group of three, and a solitary one apart growing close to the old tree's side. I sat down by my lonely little sister, blue sky overhead, green grass at my feet decked, like the pastures of the Blessèd, in glorious sheen ”

“ Striking the side of the dark pines, the wind changes their colour and turns them paler. The oak leaves slide one over the other, hand above hand, laying shadow upon shadow upon the white road. In the vast net of the wide elm-tops the drifting shadow of the cloud which the wind brings is caught for a moment. ”

“ The oak grows silently in the forest a thousand years; only in the thousandth year, when the woodman arrives with his ax, is there heard an echoing through the solitudes; and the oak announces itself when, with far-sounding crash, it falls. ”

“ Those of the live oak are particularly clear and distinct, and beyond all art in grace and delicacy, now still as if painted on stone, now gliding softly as if afraid of noise, now dancing, waltzing in swift, merry swirls, or jumping on and off sunny rocks in quick dashes like wave embroidery on seashore cliffs. ”

“ On this side by the hedge the ground is a little higher and dry, hung over with the lengthy boughs of an oak which give some shade. I always feel a sense of regret when I see a seedling oak in the grass. The two green leaves—the little stem so upright and confident, and though but a few inches high, already so completely a tree—are in themselves beautiful. Power, endurance, grandeur are there; you can grasp all with your hand and take a ship between the finger and thumb. ”

“ Trees of light are the oak, which, despite the fable, resists the storm, the exquisite but robust birch, the pitch pine, which still grows at an altitude of eighteen hundred metres, and the even hardier larch, which attains the land of external snow; the shadow trees are the fir and the beech, with their delicate organisms, sensitive to frost, the attacks of the sun and the lack of water. ”

“ Only a few yards above, a cool spring gushes up, quick and bright, dimpling and laughing in the arrowy sunshine, then flashing and foaming over the dark rocks, and twisting in and out among the bare roots of the majestic oak that cools us with its shadows, falls in a golden shower to the mossy basin at your feet, and leaping over the steep precipice, mingles in foam with the seething river below. ”

“ An oak—not as it stands choked up in the crowded wood, with room neither to spread nor breathe, but as it stands in the open field, swelling out below where it anchors its roots in the ground, and swelling out above where it stretches its arms into the air,—presents us with the most perfect form of firmness, self-support, stout and sturdy independence. ”

“ In midsummer, when the sun rises over the hillside opposite my home its first bright beams glance between the branches of a giant oak in the hedgerow of a cornfield above the wooded slope, and sparkle on my study window. ”

“ The oak is a majestic tree, the chesnut one of the most umbrageous of forest trees, the elm rises like a pyramid of verdure, the ash has its drooping branches, the maple is celebrated for its light and quivering foliage, but the beech is the poets’ tree, the lovers’ tree. Have you not heard that young men often haunt the forest, and disfigure the even and silvery bark of beech-trees, by making them the depositors of the names of their beloved ones? ”

“ The extraordinary strength in the great, horizontal branches, their breadth and lateral sweep, and the rugged boldness of the trunk have long associated the oak with all that stands for strength, duration, and unswerving vitality. An oak never seems out of place; no matter whether we find it growing in unbroken forests, on a country estate, in a little garden, or by the roadside, it always harmonizes with its surroundings and adds to the composition of the landscape. ”

“ An ancient oak is struggling for breath in the strangle-hold of the ivy; woody nightshade, honeysuckle, and other climbers trail over and smother any bush or shrub in their way. For yards the young reeds are already bruised and broken, for the weight of hundreds of roosting starlings has exceeded their power of endurance. ”

“ The oak openings—those grand parklike expanses and rolls of land, with stately groups of giant oaks—far surpassing all culture of man, set out by the Creator on such a noble forest background, never looked more majestic and beautiful. ”

“ The oak obeys every law, regularly increases and develops, stretches its shady arms of blessing, proudly wears its leafy coronal, and drops abundant acorns for future oaks as faithful; but who of ye all does not violate the law of your life—so that we, if we follow you, would be so death-struck with dry-rot that the trees would fail upon every hand and the earth become a desert! ”

“ The trees are of all kinds and all hues, chiefly the finely-shaped elm, of so bright and deep a green, the tips of whose high outer branches drop down with such a crisp and garland-like richness, and the oak, whose stately form is just now so splendidly adorned by the sunny colouring of the young leaves. ”

“ The oaks are more tenacious of their leaves than any other deciduous tree, though they are fairly early in showing autumn tints. Long after the reds of other trees of the wood are buried in the brown drifts that cover the roots from the too fierce frosts of winter the rich deep crimsons and red-browns of the oak remain. ”

“ Up there mighty trees grew closer together, leaving hardly a fragment of sky to discover from below--tall pine and gnarled oak, spreading lindens, beeches, maple and spruce, all growing in a semidarkness where the sunlight seldom pierced. ”

“ The ideal of the mountain oak may be anything, twisting, and leaning, and shattered, and rock-encumbered, so only that amidst all its misfortunes, it maintain the dignity of oak; and, indeed, I look upon this kind of tree as more ideal than the other, in so far as by its efforts and struggles, more of its nature, enduring power, patience in waiting for, and ingenuity in obtaining what it wants, is brought out, and so more of the essence of oak exhibited, than under more fortunate conditions. ”

“ What cousin of mine is the shrub oak? Rigid as iron, clean as the atmosphere, hardy as virtue, innocent and sweet as a maiden, is the shrub oak. In proportion as I know and love it, I am natural and sound as a partridge. I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak. Tenacious of its leaves which shrivel not, but retain a certain wintry life in them, firm shields painted in fast colors, a rich brown. The deer-mouse, too, knows the shrub oak, and has its hole in the snow by the shrub oak's stem. ”

“ ERE AROUND THE HUGE OAK
Ere around the huge oak, that o’ershadows yon mill
The fond ivy had dar’d to entwine;
Ere the church was a ruin, that nods on the hill,
Or a rook built its nest on the pine. ”

“ The attitudes of oak trees are a very interesting study. There is the oak which, bending forwards and stretching out a kindly hand, appears to offer a hearty welcome; the oak that starts backward in astonishment at any familiarity advanced by a passing stranger. The oak that assumes an attitude of pride and self-importance; the oak that approaches a superior neighbour with an air of humility and abasement, listening subserviently to his commands. ”

“ It supports a great weight of thick limbs, irregular and crooked. Clear up to the knotted twigs, and tough brown leaves that often hang on all winter, the oak has a stubborn look. It dares the winter winds to do their worst. And it looks so old, so wise, such a scarred hero of a thousand fights. The old Norse sea kings and the brave English once worshiped the oak tree. It gave them ship timbers that could stand the strain of wind and waves. Many ancient peoples thought dryads, or wood spirits, lived in oak trees. ”

“ The shrinking oak in dread of an enemy, and the oak prepared to offer a stout resistance. The hopeful oak in the prime of life, and the oak that totters in desolate and crabbed old age. The oak that enjoys in middle age the good things of life, with well-fed and rounded symmetry; and the oak that suggests decrepitude, with rough exterior, and a life-experience of hardship; the sturdy oak, the ambitious oak, the self-contained oak, and so on, through every phase of character. No other tree is so human or so expressive, and no other tree bespeaks such fortitude and endurance. ”

“ The rare, wholesome and permanent beauty of withered oak leaves of various hues of brown, mottling a hillside, especially seen when the sun is low, Quaker colors, sober ornaments, beauty that quite satisfies the eye,—the richness and variety are the same as before, the colors different, more incorruptible and lasting. ”

“ As the oak dies and leaves its eternal image in the seed which never dies, so these grand river-forced ravines, abused and disabused as may be, go on for ever, despite the scribblers, and one finds the best in his imagination returning by some back-lane to contemplative thought. ”

“ Once said the ivy to the thyme.
"You always creep and never climb.
Whilst scarce above the ground you rise,
I mount this oak and seek the skies:—
The old oak which Jove cherishes,
My comrade is." ”

“ The red oak, the black oak, the scarlet oak, all splendid forest trees of the Northeast, are in the group of confusion that can be readily separated only by the timber-cruiser, who knows every tree in the forest for its economic value, or by the botanist, with his limp-bound Gray's Manual in hand. ”

“ It may be seen wheeling round the branches of some tree, the oak being a special favourite, sometimes circling round it, and sometimes rising high in the air, and the next moment skimming along the ground. ”

“ The oak, when living, monarch of the wood;
The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood; ”

“ Here, despite a certain litter of dead wood, is many an ancient heart of oak still full of the movement of life—a movement hidden during the dead season and revealed but in a power of sheer endurance, yet, as often as spring calls, becoming manifest in an access of fresh efflorescence and increase. ”

“ The poor thing could not draw moisture enough from the ground before the storm shook its roots and embedded them deeper. If I had known the philosophy of storms before, I need not have lost the other oak."
Here the old gardener sat beneath the branches of the oak, and they seemed to rise and fall as if bestowing blessings on his head. That spot became his favorite resting-place amid his labors for many years. The oak lived to a good old age, and was the gardener's pride. Maidens gathered its leaves and wove garlands for their lovers. Children sported under its boughs. ”

“ Well, down in the wood yonder there's enough dead white oak, standing or on the ground, to make three thousand, nine-foot posts, and one seasoned white oak will outlast two cedars, and it is twice as strong. ”

“ This period is wealthy in yellows and russets and browns, in great, overhanging masses of oak, whose olive hue is warmed into umber depth, in groves of serious pines, red of bark, and cool in the dark greenness of their spires. Nature wears an aspect of patient waiting for a great change; ripeness, existence beyond the accomplishment of the purpose of life, a long, pleasant, painless waiting for death,—{156}these are the conditions of the vegetation; and it is vegetation more than the peculiar appearance of the air which impresses the strange character of the season. ”

“ The oak-brush, which we then approached, is a curious and interesting form of vegetation. It is a mass of oak-trees, all of the same age, growing as close as they can stand, with branches down to the ground. ”

“ He grows up before you like the tender sapling by the side of the mighty oak. May the oak and the sapling flourish a long time together. And when the mighty oak is fallen to the ground, may the young tree fill its place in the forest, and spread out its branches over the tribe like the parent trunk. ”

“ The white oak, especially when young, holds many of its leaves in spring and these with their brown color, give a warmth to the snowy landscape. One could make a most beautiful park by planting nothing but oaks and they should rank with maples and elms as street trees. ”

“ When the young oak is but a few inches above the ground, the hand of the woodman can bend the slender stem as he pleases; but when it has grown for half a century he is powerless to turn it from the direction which it has taken. ”

“ The scientists may demonstrate that this ancient oak—whose cooling shadows have for so many ages given comfort and delight—is overgrown, unshapely, with needless nodules, and corky rind, and splotches of moss, and seams that show stress of gone-by belaboring tempests; they may make it clear that these things are needless for its support—that they cover and cloak its normal organic structure; but who shall hew them clean away, and yet leave in fulness of stature and of sheltering power the majestic growth we venerate? ”

“ But this is as a dream,—the plough has pass'd
Where the stag bounded, and the day has looked
On the green twilight of the forest-trees.
This oak has no companion!⁠.⁠.⁠.⁠. ”