Doddered

Your Country Friends were told another Tale; / That from the ſloaping Mountain to the Vale, / And dodder’d Oak, and all the Banks along, / Menalcas ſav’d his Fortune with a Song.

This, once reſolv’d, the Peaſants were enjoin’d Sere Wood, and Firs, and dodder’d Oaks to find.

Some wield the ſounding ax; the dodder’d oaks / Divide, obedient to the forceful ſtrokes.

[…] / He passes now the doddered oak, / Ye heard the startled raven croak; […]

And, where mighty rivers come rolling to the sea, we mark, through the long-retiring vistas which they open into the interior, the higher grounds of the country covered with coniferous trees, and see doddered trunks of vast size, like those of Granton and Craigleith, reclining under the banks in deep muddy reaches, with their decaying tops turned adown the current.

The turf was verdant, the gravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums clustered beautiful about the roots of the doddered orchard giants.

From that hill-top could be seen the valley of the river Erewash, with its rich meadows and doddered willows by the water-courses, its grey uplands and scanty timber: […]

The green glades in the autumnal woods were inviting, and sometimes they stood before the vast form of some doddered oak.