(Gothic language: "Flower of the Trees") by J. R. R. Tolkien is a poem in the 1936 Songs for the Philologists, and the only one ever written in the Gothic language. It was to be sung to the tune of "O Lazy Sheep!". Scholars have found the poem beautiful, and have debated its interpretation. Tom Shippey proposed that the Birch tree, praised in the poem, symbolises the 'B' scheme of English teaching, namely Tolkien's own subject, philology. Verlyn Flieger doubted the connection, writing that the Birch played a significant emotional role in Smith of Wootton Major, as in the poem, and that this was only diminished by seeking a further interpretation. Publication history The poem was published along with a collection of others in the rare privately-printed 1936 book Songs for the Philologists, unauthorised by either of the poems' authors, J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon. It was reprinted, together with a Modern English translation by Rhona Beare, in Tom Shippey's The Road to Middle-earth. Poem The poem has three verses, each of six lines. It was intended to be sung to the tune of "O Lazy Sheep!" by Mantle Childe, after an old French air. Analysis The poem was, like the others in the collection, written as a scholarly philological entertainment. Tolkien had to reconstruct some of the words he used from other Germanic languages, as little of the Gothic language survives. The scholar of historical linguistics Luzius Thöny has analysed the grammar and meaning of the words of the poem. He comments that Tolkien has to some extent relied on Old English rather than what is common to the Germanic languages, giving the example of meaning "boughs", whereas in other Germanic languages "bog-" means "shoulder". The Tolkien scholar Lucas Annear, in Tolkien Studies, writes that Tolkien "uses reconstruction liberally", which he finds understandable given the choice of Gothic and the private nature of the publication. He comments that the poem stands out from others in the collection: it is a serious poem with a lyrical tone, where many of the rest are written for comic effect. Verlyn Flieger describes the poem as "an unusually beautiful lyric, far lovelier in the Gothic than in English translation". She notes that another of Tolkien's poems in the collection, the Old English "" ("Good Luck to You"), also concerns the Birch tree, and that both sing the tree's praises. The