Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Oak (Quercus)
A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
Here’s health and renown to his broad green crown,
And his fifty arms so strong.
There’s fear in his frown when the Sun goes down,
And the fire in the West fades out;
And he showeth his might on a wild midnight,
When the storms through his branches shout.
H. F. Chorley—The Brave Old Oak.
The oak, when living, monarch of the wood;
The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood.
Churchill—Gotham. I. 303.
Old noted oak! I saw thee in a mood
Of vague indifference; and yet with me
Thy memory, like thy fate, hath lingering stood
For years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea
Of grass that waves around thee!
John Clare—The Rural Muse. Burthorp Oak.
The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees.
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in state; and in three more decays.
Dryden—Palamon and Arcite. Bk. III. L. 1,058.
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.
David Everett—Lines for a School Declamation.
The oaks with solemnity shook their heads;
The twigs of the birch-trees, in token
Of warning, nodded,—and I exclaim’d:
“Dear Monarch, forgive what I’ve spoken!”
Heine—Songs. Germany. Caput XVII.
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.
Keats—Hyperion. Bk. I. L. 73.
The tall Oak, towering to the skies,
The fury of the wind defies,
From age to age, in virtue strong.
Inured to stand, and suffer wrong.
Montgomery—The Oak.
There grewe an aged tree on the greene;
A goodly Oake sometime had it bene,
With armes full strong and largely displayed,
But of their leaves they were disarayde
The bodie bigge, and mightely pight,
Thoroughly rooted, and of wond’rous hight;
Whilome had bene the king of the field,
And mochell mast to the husband did yielde,
And with his nuts larded many swine:
But now the gray mosse marred his rine;
His bared boughes were beaten with stormes,
His toppe was bald, and wasted with wormes,
His honour decayed, his braunches sere.
Spenser—Shepheard’s Callender. Februarie.