It is thirty feet in circumference. Waller also
alludes to
Yonder tree which stands the sacred mark
Of noble Sidney's birth.
Yardley Oak, immortalized by Cowper, is now in a state of decay.
Time made thee what thou wert--king of the woods!
And time hath made thee what thou art--a cave
For owls to roost in.
_Cowper_.
The tree is said to be at least fifteen hundred years old. It cannot
hold its present place much longer; but for many centuries to come it
will
Live in description and look green in song.
It stands on the grounds of the Marquis of Northampton; and to prevent
people from cutting off and carrying away pieces of it as relics, the
following notice has been painted on a board and nailed to the
tree:--"_Out of respect to the memory of the poet Cowper, the Marquis of
Northampton is particularly desirous of preserving this Oak_."
Lord Byron, in early life, planted an oak in the garden at Newstead and
indulged the fancy, that as that flourished so should he. The oak has
survived the poet, but it will not outlive the memory of its planter or
even the boyish verses which he addressed to it.
Pope observes, that "a tree is a nobler object than a prince in his
coronation robes." Yet probably the poet had never seen any tree larger
than a British oak. What would he have thought of the Baobab tree in
Abyssinia, which measures from 80 to 120 feet in girth, and sometimes
reaches the age of five thousand years.
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