Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Aspen (Populus Tremuloides)
What whispers so strange at the hour of midnight,
From the aspen leaves trembling so wildly?
Why in the lone wood sings it sad, when the bright
Full moon beams upon it so mildly?
B. S. Ingemann—The Aspen.
At that awful hour of the Passion, when the Saviour of the world felt deserted in His agony, when—
“The sympathizing sun his light withdrew,
And wonder’d how the stars their dying Lord could view”—
when earth, shaking with horror, rung the passing bell for Deity, and universal nature groaned, then from the loftiest tree to the lowliest flower all felt a sudden thrill, and trembling, bowed their heads, all save the proud and obdurate aspen, which said, “Why should we weep and tremble? we trees, and plants, and flowers are pure and never sinned!” Ere it ceased to speak, an involuntary trembling seized its very leaf, and the word went forth that it should never rest, but tremble on until the day of judgment.
Legend. From Notes and Queries. First Series. Vol. VI. No. 161.
Beneath a shivering canopy reclined,
Of aspen leaves that wave without a wind,
I love to lie, when lulling breezes stir
The spiry cones that tremble on the fir.
John Leyden—Noontide.
And the wind, full of wantonness, wooes like a lover
The young aspen-trees till they tremble all over.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. Light of the Harem.
Do I? yea, in very truth do I,
An ’twere an aspen leaf.
II Henry IV. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 117.
O had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble like aspen-leaves, upon a lute.
Titus Andronicus. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 45.