"What are the boasted palaces of man, Imperial city or triumphal arch, To the strong oak, that gathers strength from time To grapple with the storm? Time watch'd The blossom on the parent bough. Time saw The acorn loosen from the spray. Time pass'd, While springing from its swad'ling shell, yon oak, The cloud-crowned monarch of the woods, up sprang A royal hero from his nurse's arms. Time gave it seasons, and time gave it years, Ages bestow'd, and centuries grudg'd not; Time knew the sapling when gay summer's breath Shook to the roots the infant oak, which after Tempests moved not. Time hollow'd in its trunk A tomb for centuries; and buried there The epochs of the rise and fall of states, The fading generations of the world, The memory of man." Hyde Park was covered in ancient times with a dense growth of tall trees and underwood, which extending from sea to sea, shaded a large portion of the states of the Iceni and Trinobantes, the Cantii and the Regni. But the aspect of external nature has changed since; instead of noble trees and all the varied undulations of innumerable boughs, now gently waving in the breeze of summer, and now furiously wrought upon by the northern blast, great London has arisen where all was wood and swamp, and on the space which still retains somewhat of the character that once it bore, are all the accompaniments of a modern park. Clumps of trees, arranged by the hand of taste, flowering shrubs, and beautifully tufted groves, delight the eye with their beauty or their fragrance; walks and carriage-drives, lead among them, and through that portion, which bears especially the name of park, winds a gentle river, which reflects on its mirror-like waters, green sloping banks, where cattle graze. An aged tree grows on the right hand of the road, beside the river, with its trunk devoid of bark, and cracked in all directions, the effect of long exposure to the weather. Its bare and skeleton-looking branches are also without bark, and beside it stands another tree, the twin brother of its desolation. These trees are very aged, for the oldest inhabitant in the neighbourhood remembers to have seen them in the same condition when he climbed their trunks, a playful boy in search of the owl's nest; but she was too wary to confide her young to so poor a shelter.