SURVIVOR sole, and hardly such, of all That once lived here, thy brethren !—at my birth (Since which I number threescore winters past) A shattered veteran, hollow-trunked perhaps, As now, and with excoriate forks deform, Relics of ages!—could a mind, imbued With truth from Heaven, created thing adore, I might with reverence kneel and worship thee. It seems idolatry with some excuse, When our forefather Druids in their oaks Imagined sanctity. The conscience, yet Unpurified by an authentic act
Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine, Loved not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste Of fruit proscribed, as to a refuge, fled.
Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball, Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, Seeking her food, with ease might have purloined The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs, And all thine embryo vastness, at a gulp. But fate thy growth decreed; autumnal rains Beneath thy parent tree mellowed the soil Designed thy cradle; and a skipping deer, With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepared The soft receptacle, in which, secure, Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through. So fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can, Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search Of argument, employed too oft amiss, Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!
Thou fell'st mature; and in the loamy clod Swelling with vegetative force instinct
Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins, Now stars; two lobes, protruding, paired exact; A leaf succeeded, and another leaf,
And, all the elements thy puny growth
Fostering propitious, thou becamest a twig.
Who lived when thou wast such? Oh, couldst thou speak,
As in Dodona once thy kindred trees
Oracula, I would not curious ask
The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past.
By thee I might correct, erroneous oft, The clock of history, facts and events Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts Recovering, and misstated setting right- Desperate attempt, till trees shall speak again!
Time made thee what thou wast, king of the woods, And Time hath made thee what thou art a cave For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs O'erhung the champaign; and the numerous flocks That grazed it stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe-sheltered from the storm. No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outlived
Thy popularity, and art become
(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth.
While thus through all the stages thou hast pushed Of treeship-first a seedling, hid in grass;
Then twig; then sapling; and, as century rolled Slow after century, a giant-bulk
Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root Upheaved above the soil, and sides embossed With prominent wens globose,—till at the last The rottenness, which Time is charged to inflict On other mighty ones, found also thee.
What exhibitions various hath the world Witnessed, of mutability in all
That we account most durable below! Change is the diet on which all subsist, Created changeable, and change at last Destroys them. Skies uncertain, now the heat Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds,- Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought, Invigorate by turns the springs of life
In all that live, plant, animal, and man,
And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads, Fine passing thought, even in her coarsest works, Delight in agitation, yet sustain
The force that agitates, not unimpaired; But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause Of their best tone their dissolution owe.
Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still The great and little of thy lot, thy growth From almost nullity into a state
Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence, Slow, into such magnificent decay.
Time was when, settling on thy leaf, a fly
Could shake thee to the root-and time has been
When tempests could not. At thy firmest age
Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents,
That might have ribbed the sides and planked the deck Of some flagged admiral; and tortuous arms,
The shipwright's darling treasure, didst present To the four-quartered winds, robust and bold, Warped into tough knee-timber,* many a load!
* Knee-timber is found in the crooked arms of oak, which, by reason of their distortion, are easily adjusted to the angle formed where the deck and the ship's sides meet.
But the axe spared thee. In those thriftier days Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply The bottomless demands of contest waged For senatorial honours. Thus to Time The task was left to whittle thee away With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge, Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more, Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserved, Achieved a labour, which had, far and wide, By man performed, made all the forest ring. Embowelled now, and of thy ancient self Possessing nought but the scooped rind,—that seems A huge throat calling to the clouds for drink, Which it would give in rivulets to thy root,- Thou temptest none, but rather much forbiddest The feller's toil, which thou couldst ill requite. Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock, A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs, Which, crooked into a thousand whimsies, clasp The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect.
So stands a kingdom, whose foundation yet Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, Though all the superstructure, by the tooth Pulverized of venality, a shell
Stands now, and semblance only of itself! Thine arms have left thee.
Long since, and rovers of the forest wild With bow and shaft have burnt them. A splintered stump, bleached to a snowy white : And some memorial none, where once they grew. Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth Proof not contemptible of what she can, Even where death predominates. The Spring Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force Than yonder upstarts of the neighbouring wood, So much thy juniors, who their birth received Half a millennium since the date of thine.
But since, although well qualified by age To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice May be expected from thee, seated here On thy distorted root, with hearers none, Or prompter, save the scene, I will perform Myself the oracle, and will discourse In my own ear such matter as I may.
One man alone, the father of us all, Drew not his life from woman; never gazed, With mute unconsciousness of what he saw, On all around him; learned not by degrees, Nor owed articulation to his ear; But moulded by his Maker into man At once, upstood intelligent, surveyed All creatures, with precision understood
Their purport, uses, properties; assigned
To each his name significant, and, filled
With love and wisdom, rendered back to Heaven
In praise harmonious the first air he drew.
He was excused the penalties of dull
No tutor charged his hand
With the thought-tracing quill, or tasked his mind With problems. History, not wanted yet,
Leaned on her elbow, watching Time, whose course,
Eventful, should supply her with a theme.
WHICH THE AUTHOR HEARD SING ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1792.
HASTINGS! I knew thee young, and of a mind, While young, humane, conversable, and kind; Nor can I well believe thee. gentle then, Now grown a villain, and the worst of men ; But rather some suspect who have oppressed And worried thee, as not themselves the best.
WRITTEN FOR INSERTION IN A COLLECTION OF HANDWRITINGS AND SIGNATURES, MADE BY MISS PATTY, SISTER OF HANNAH MORE.
IN vain to live from age to age While modern bards endeavour, I write my name in Patty's page, And gain my point for ever.
TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ. THY Country, Wilberforce, with just disdain, Hears thee by cruel men and impious called Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose the enthralled From exile, public sale, and slavery's chain. Friend of the poor, the wronged, the fetter-galled, Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain! Thou hast achieved a part; hast gained the ear
Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause.
Hope smiles, joy springs, and though cold caution pause And weave delay, the better hour is near
That shall remunerate thy toils severe
By peace for Afric, fenced with British laws.
Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love
From all the just on earth and all the blest above.
TO DR. AUSTEN, OF CECIL STREET, LONDON.
AUSTEN! accept a grateful verse from me,
The poet's treasure, no inglorious fee. Loved by the Muses, thy ingenuous mind Pleasing requital in a verse may find;
Verse oft has dashed the scythe of Time aside, Immortalizing names which else had died.
And oh! could I command the glittering wealth With which sick kings are glad to purchase health,
Yet, if extensive fame, and sure to live,
Were in the power of verse like mine to give,
I would not recompense his heart with less,
Who, giving Mary health, heals my distress.
Friend of my friend !* I love thee, though unknown, And boldly call thee, being his, my own.
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