MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. THE VOICE OF THE OAK. 66 Tongues in trees." SHAKSPEARE. GENIUS! if such may chance to dwell Within the excavated bound That rudely shapes this oaken cell, And closes in its knotty round, Genius! with acorn chaplet crown'd, If fraught it were with mortal sound, For many a course of sun and shade, Tempest and calm, thy growth matured; And many a year its circle made, The while thy summer prime endured: To flood and flame of heaven inured, Slow centuries hast thou o'erstaid; By stern, majestic might secured From storms that wreck or blights that fade. Thou, like a hermit sad and sage, In silence lone thy dwelling hast: Thine aspect is a living page Where times o'erflown their annals cast. For, through the watches of the past, Thou hast beheld, as age on age Dawn'd, hast beheld them setting fast, And thou that saw'st them wear away, Thy grandeur creeps to sure decay, Amid the devastation wide. For Time thy giant strength has tried, And, sparely deck'd, thy branches grey Hang, like old banners, at thy side, To mark his conquering sway. Ere long, the vernal year in vain Shall seek this trembling shade of thine : Thee to infoliate, ne'er again Shall Spring her freshest garland twine. The presage of thy slow decline O'er all thy silver'd bark is plain, Inscribed in many a fatal sign Portentous of thy ruin'd reign. But sure a whisper faintly broke, Was it the Spirit of the Oak, Or Fancy haunting there, With seeming voice?-Again it spoke! Nor may rash mortal dare Silence the echoes it awoke, Or bid its tongue forbear. "Child of the dust! to being sprung Long since these boughs with age were bent, Thy useless lay is idly sung, Thy breath in vain conjecture spent. What though with ancient pomp I wear The spoil of years for ever flown; What though in dryad lore I bear Thee little it imports to hear, How, o'er the waning orb of Time, Fleet ages dawn and disappear, Revolving in their course sublime. The voice of years would tire to tell What desolating waste has been, What generations rose and fell Since erst these aged limbs were green. For swift as o'er the changing skies Sunshine and winter whirlwinds sweep, The mortal race to being rise, And rest them in their slumber deep. Some in the early bud are reft, And some in blossom immature: Of those to summer ripeness left, How few till Nature's fall endure! For countless are the forms of fate That lurk in silent ambushment, That term so brief to antedate, To quench the flame so quickly spent. Oh, seek not in the dust of years The fragments strew'd by man's decay: Enough in every hour appears, To tell that all things wear away. Even while the curious search is gone In quest of hosts and legions fled, Thy own brief term is hasting on, To join the phalanx of the dead. |