Birch Rod

Famous quotes containing the words birch and/or rod:

    The birch stripped of its bark, or the charred stump where a tree has been burned down to be made into a canoe,—these are the only traces of man, a fabulous wild man to us. On either side, the primeval forest stretches away uninterrupted to Canada, or to the “South Sea”; to the white man a drear and howling wilderness, but to the Indian a home, adapted to his nature, and cheerful as the smile of the Great Spirit.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    For the first fourteen years for a rod they do whine,
    For the next as a pearl in the world they do shine,
    For the next trim beauty beginneth to swerve,
    For the next matrons or drudges they serve,
    For the next doth crave a staff for a stay,
    For the next a bier to fetch them away.
    Thomas Tusser (c. 1520–1580)