Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Thorn (Cratægus)
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.
Burns—The Cotter’s Saturday Night. St. 9.
There is a Thorn,—it looks so old,
In truth, you’d find it hard to say
How it could ever have been young,
It looks so old and gray.
Not higher than a two years child
It stands erect, this aged Thorn;
No leaves it has, no prickly points;
It is a mass of knotted joints,
A wretched thing forlorn.
It stands erect, and like a stone
With lichens is it overgrown.
Wordsworth—The Thorn.