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 vois me croyez, mignonne
Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté
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 ways & 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 & 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."