Current 93

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avait déclosé
Sa robe de poupre au soleil
A point perdu cette vêprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée
Et son teint au vôtre pareil
Las! Voyez comme en peu d'espace
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las! las! ses beautés laissé choir!
O vraiment marâtre est Nature
Puisqu'une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir!
Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne
Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveaut
Cueillez, cueillez votre jeunesse:
Comme à cette fleur, la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté
The old willows wrecked again and again in the hold of the woods held
in close confinement all round into the struggle for existance where the
streams were constantly taken from their course by the roots of the old
trees in the woods allowing no mill stream the free course through until
the whole of these fine old trees had got their whole water course directed
by their own roots into each others roots in their own devious way &
so each time the bad weather conditions came the dell of the old popular
willows received the whole rainfall & gave the roots of the old popular
trees the worst conditions they could not recover from. The result was
when the bad storms swept the ground downhill the whole of the upright
branches of the populars were wrecked and wrenched off as none had
sufficient root hold to do any good in holding as against the winds forcing
both root & trunks & branches to give way. The ultimate result was as
stated the cracking down of the branches & the breaking off of the main
trunk as it had no side branches to help its leaves to support the whole
tree. This gave the stubble growth of enforcing the trunk low down near
the ground to spray out the small side branches & to develope in the trunk
the further strength to enlarge the top of the trunk to enable the heavy
branch growth to develop & to give out a large number of spray branches
in all directions to keep control of the wind and also to stop the wind from
further to destroy the old trees in its course the winds followed the well
streams & then got the clear run free of the trees until a run of heavy old
tree trunks guided them out again into the ground where the rising ground
destroyed them by holding them in face clear of the winds the night mist.
-- Louis Wain (1860-1939)