- BUT chief, let fix’d Attention cast his eye
- On the capt mountain, whose high rocky verge
- The wild fig1 canopies, (vast woodland king,
- Beneath thy branching shade a banner’d host
- May lie in ambush!) and whose shaggy sides, [380]
- Trees shade, of endless green, enormous size,
- Wondrous in shape, to botany unknown,
- Old as the deluge:2——There, in secret haunts,
- The watery spirits ope their liquid court;
- There, with the wood-nymphs, link’d in festal band, [385]
- (Soft airs and Phoebus3 wing them to their arms)
- Hold amorous dalliance. Ah, may none profane,
- With fire, or steel, their mystic privacy:
- For there their fluent offspring first see day,
- Coy infants sporting; silver-footed dew [390]
- To bathe by night thy sprouts in genial balm;
- The green-stol’d Naiad of the tinkling rill,
- Whose brow the fern-tree shades;4 the power of rain
VER. 393. Whose brow the fern-tree] This only grows in mountainous situations. Its stem shoots up to a considerable height, but it does not divide into branches, till near the summit, where it shoots out horizontally, like an umbrella, into leaves, which resemble those of the common fern. I know of no medical uses, whereto this singularly beautiful tree has been applied, and indeed its wood, being spungy, is seldom used to oeconomical purposes. It, however, serves well enough for building mountain-huts, and temporary fences for cattle.
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Also known as bearded fig or the wild banyan tree (Ficus citrifolia). ↩︎
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The Biblical flood of Noah’s time. ↩︎
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An alternate name for the Greek god Apollo and used in contexts where Apollo is identified with the sun. ↩︎
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Tree ferns are primitive plants that belong to the order Cyatheales. Grainger may have been referencing Cyathea arborea, sometimes known as the West Indian treefern, which can grow up to nine meters tall. ↩︎