Elm Quotes

“I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

--from "Elm", written 19 April 1962”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel

“Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel

“The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel

“I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?”
― sylvia plath, Ariel

“Love needs new leaves every summer of life, as much as your elm-tree, and new branches to grow broader and wider, and new flowers to cover the ground.”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe

“All day, after two days and nights of rain, water had been rising in the dykes and now it was creeping rapidly up the five stone arches of the bridge where the she stood watching the wide rainy valley up which the tongue of river finally lost itself in a gray country of winter elms.”
― H.E. Bates, The Feast of July

“One of the most astounding places elms grow is on Canna, a remote Hebridean island with a valuable safe harbour for sailors (my summer obsession). There is nothing to the south-west of Canna except a few thousand miles of Atlantic Ocean, and that's the prevailing wind direction, scouring the island with salt-laden rain and gales. Yet here I find a craggy slope swathed in elms, sculpted by the wind into wedges, repeatedly clipped to the distinctive wind-raked shape of the slope. In mid-July, the trees were in full leaf and thriving, and underneath the triangular canopy the ancient trunks were chunky and strong. They must have been hunkering there in the teeth of the wind for centuries. Here was a perfect example of elm's toughness and ability to survive the ravages of severe weather.”
― Mandy Haggith, The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees – and the Fight to Save Them

“SAMUEL GARDNER

I who kept the greenhouse,
Lover of trees and flowers,
Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm,
Measuring its generous branches with my eye,
And listened to its rejoicing leaves
Lovingly patting each other
With sweet aeolian whispers.
And well they might:
For the roots had grown so wide and deep
That the soil of the hill could not withhold
Aught of its virtue, enriched by rain,
And warmed by the sun;
But yielded it all to the thrifty roots,
Through which it was drawn and whirled to the trunk,
And thence to the branches, and into the leaves,
Wherefrom the breeze took life and sang.
Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can see
That the branches of a tree
Spread no wider than its roots.
And how shall the soul of a man
Be larger than the life he has lived?”
― Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology

“A young elm seedling or sapling, in a wood that is open to the browsing of sheep, goats or ponies, has about as much chance of survival as a lettuce in a rabbit hutch!”
― Herbert L. Edlin, The Living Forest: A History of Trees and Timbers

“Between the disappearance of the river and its re-emegence is like a desert river valley, clearly carved by water, with rounded stones in the bottom and steep sides, but no water running. Yet here there are elm trees, one of which is huge, with a magnificent trunk festooned with mosses, lichens, polypody ferns and fungi, a rich tapestry of rainforest life. Uniquely, it grows horizontally out of the rock, many metres up the sheer wall of the ravine, a completely implausible place for a tree to grow, hanging in complete defiance of the laws of physics.

I stand beneath it, neck craned in awe, looking up into the lush green profusion of its living community. It is winter, so all this greenery isn't the tree's own leaves, but photosynthesising life using it as a climbing frame. Paradoxically, in this dry river valley, everything about its grand gathering of epiphytes declares it to be a rainforest tree. It is a perfect synbol of survival against the odds.”
― Mandy Haggith, The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees – and the Fight to Save Them

“In the context of our society's struggle against environmental loss and climate chaos, the symbolism of the elm is something grounding and earthy. It is one full of complexity and contradictions, but also a symbol of renewal, of survival against the odds and of life after tragedy. A tree of hope.”
― Robert Somerville, Barn Club: A Tale of Forgotten Elm Trees, Traditional Craft and Community Spirit

“The day came for Mary to go. There was a bustle of departure. 'Next year,' they all shouted. The dogs jumped and barked. Jenny ran to the end of the departure platform and waved and waved as the train drew out. 'Next year,' she cried. Then life went on. The dark came sooner. The first elm leaf grew yellow. The barley was brown.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Grampian Quartet: The Quarry Wood: The Weatherhouse: A Pass in the Grampians: The Living Mountain