by Louis Myrie

In Mandarin Chinese the word for the yew-tree is 紫杉 (Zǐ shān). It literally translates as purple Chinese fir. ‘紫’ by itself is the word for purple and ‘衫’ means Chinese fir. The Oxford University Herbaria website describes this fir as ‘conical, with gracefully-tiered branches that are pendulous at the tips’. Its ‘trunk is furrowed, with red-brown scaly bark’ and the branches have ‘pale green leaves’ that are ‘spear-shaped’. The yew shares some features with the Chinese fir that account for the similarity implied in the word. Like the fir the trunks of common (European) yews are furrowed. Like the spear-shapes of fir leaves, the needles of yews taper as thin and pointed forms. The difference between the colours of the trunks of the two species could account for the idea of the yew as a purple version of the fir. Common yew trunks can be brown with purplish tones, so would be distinct from the firs’ ‘red-brown scaly bark’. 

It is also interesting to note how the visual features of the Chinese word relate to the yew and fir. It includes the ideogram for tree in the first part of its second character, which is also visible in the word for tree in general, ‘树’ (Shù). Look at the ideogram and you can see a trunk, a horizontal branch and two down-hanging branches. The roman alphabet which English uses has removed this possibility of visual resemblance. Its abstraction from the yew, however, is something which poetry in English may resist. My favourite poet, William Wordsworth, did so in publishing his lyric about a man and a yew-tree in the revolutionary collection of Romantic poems, Lyrical Ballads (1798).

Below is his poem with its long title. It’s called ‘Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree, which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite, on a desolate part of the shore, yet commanding a beautiful prospect.’  Can you spot any resemblance between the qualities of the poem and the qualities of the tree?

LINES
LEFT UPON A SEAT IN
A YEW-TREE
WHICH STANDS NEAR THE LAKE OF ESTHWAITE,
ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE,
YET COMMANDING A BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT.

—Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb;
What if these barren boughs the bee not loves;
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.

————————Who he was
That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod

First covered o'er, and taught this aged tree,
Now wild, to bend its arms in circling shade,
I well remember.—He was one who own'd
No common soul. In youth, by genius nurs'd,
And big with lofty views, he to the world
Went forth, pure in his heart, against the taint
Of dissolute tongues, 'gainst jealousy, and hate,
And scorn, against all enemies prepared,
All but neglect: and so, his spirit damped
At once, with rash disdain he turned away,
And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude.—Stranger! these gloomy boughs
Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,
His only visitants a straggling sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper;
And on these barren rocks, with juniper,
And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o'er,
Fixing his downward eye, he many an hour
A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life:

And lifting up his head, he then would gaze
On the more distant scene; how lovely 'tis
Thou seest, and he would gaze till it became
Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain
The beauty still more beauteous. Nor, that time,
Would he forget those beings, to whose minds,
Warm from the labours of benevolence,
The world, and man himself, appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh
With mournful joy, to think that others felt
What he must never feel: and so, lost man!
On visionary views would fancy feed,
Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep vale
He died, this seat his only monument.

If thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure,
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know, that pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt

For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man, whose eye
Is ever on himself, doth look on one,
The least of nature's works, one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful, ever. O, be wiser thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love,
True dignity abides with him alone
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
In lowliness of heart.

Did you spot the long dashes in the poem like the deep lines on the trunk?

Did you notice the resemblance between the slow, highly punctuated, unfolding of the sentences and the slow growth of the tree (much slower than other species)?

Are the branches and trunks complex like the sentences? Intersecting branches? Or clear, distinct, separate branches?

Was there a similarity between the serious mood of the poem and the grave character of yews? Note that the tree is often found in graveyards.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lyrical_Ballads_(1798)/Lines_left_upon_a_Seat_in_a_Yew-tree_which_stands_near_the_Lake_of_Esthwaite

contributed by Louis Myrie

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,

Which to this day stands single, in the midst

Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,

Not loth to furnish weapons for the Bands

Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched

To Scotland's Heaths; or Those that crossed the Sea

And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,

Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.

Of vast circumference and gloom profound

This solitary Tree!—a living thing

Produced too slowly ever to decay;

Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed. But worthier still of note

Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,

Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;

Huge trunks!—and each particular trunk a growth

Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved,—

Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks

That threaten the prophane;—a pillared shade,

Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,

By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged

Perennially—beneath whose sable roof

Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked

With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes

May meet at noontide—Fear and trembling Hope,

Silence and Foresight—Death the Skeleton

And Time the Shadow,—there to celebrate,

As in a natural temple scattered o'er

With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,

United worship; or in mute repose

To lie, and listen to the mountain flood

Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_(Wordsworth,_1815)/Volume_1/Yew_Trees

Also see: Yew-Trees read by Elizabeth Walker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG2BUkkz1sI.

The pilgrims and the trees; in particular, yew-trees

By Louis Myrie from Halifax College York

So, brooding pilgrims came to trees

and saw that they were grand

— so grand to form immensities —

as mighty trunks ascend.

And they had come from different lands

to see them spreading tall;

these people — philosophical —

would think on how they feel.

And gusts would come in forceful gushes

pilgrims cry their frail tears

beneath the spans of moody branches

giving shelter here.

And all who ventured in cathedrals

never saw a pillar grand

and complex as the trees’ extensions

rooted in the land.

by Jess Botha

The yew tree has thousands of years of religious significance. It was held sacred by Druids; as an evergreen tree, it symbolises everlasting life and rebirth. It is also known as ‘the tree of the dead’ due to its association with churchyards. Many of these churchyard yews are over 1,000 years old, with some thought to be over 2,000 years old and therefore predating Christianity, as well as the church building and churchyard that it is now associated with. It is thought that there are so many yews in churchyards because these sites were existing Pagan sites of worship, which then became enclosed and consecrated. Yews were also planted in churchyards; their berries are poisonous, so livestock would not trample over the graves to get to them. This toxicity increased the tree’s reputation as being associated with death and magic. In this Christian era, yew branches continued their spiritual significance, with branches being carried on Palm Sunday and at funerals for many centuries. 

by Louis Myrie and Patricia Bond

‘Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands

Far from all human dwelling...’

from ‘Lines Left Upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree...’ by William Wordsworth (1798)

‘The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.’

from ‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’ by Sylvia Plath (1961)

‘The Yew is healer, its powers of healing

Surpasses the body, it extends to the soul!’

from ‘The Churchyard Yew’ by Charubel (John Thomas) (1906)

‘Hope, sweet bird of promise, sings

In the yew tree of Despair.’

from ‘Where the Weary are at Rest’ by Eliza Cook (1869)

‘The Emblem of Mortality the Yew

Does now the Armed, Bloody Warriours shew...’

from ‘Upon the most hopefull and ever flourishing sprouts of valour, the

indefatigable centryes or armed gyants cut in yew at the Physick garden in

Oxford by the ingenious author J.D.’ (1664)

‘Of vast circumference and gloom profound

This solitary Tree!—a living thing

Produced too slowly ever to decay;

Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed.’ 

from ‘Yew-Trees’ by William Wordsworth (1815)

‘Description would but tire my Muse,

In short they both were turn'd to Yews.’

from ‘Baucis and Philemon’ by Jonathan Swift (1709)

‘Now more I love thee, melancholy Yew,

Whose still green leaves in solemn silence wave

Above the peasant’s rude unhonour’d grave,

Which oft thou moisten’st with the morning dew.’

from ‘Sonnet to the Yew-Tree’ by John Leyden (1817)