| 词汇 | woodman spare that tree |
| 词源 | woodman, spare that tree. Here on my trunk’s surviving frame, Carved many a long-forgotten name . . . As love’s own altar, honor me: Spare woodman, spare the beechen tree. —Thomas Campbell, “Beech Tree’s Petition” (1807) Smooth-skinned beech trees, as the old poem above shows, have always been the favorite of lovers carving their names or initials inside a heart. The beech tree lines quoted above are the real source of the familiar proverb “Woodman, spare that tree,” not the following more famous poem by George Pope Morris written in 1830, 23 years later: Woodman, spare that tree! Touch not a single bough! In youth it sheltered me, And I’ll protect it now. See also book. |
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