The Fallen Elm

Old elm, that murmured in our chimney top     The sweetest anthem autumn ever made     And into mellow whispering calms would drop     When showers fell on thy many coloured shade     And when dark tempests mimic thunder made--     While darkness came as it would strangle light     With the black tempest of a winter night     That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root--     How did I love to hear the winds upbraid     Thy strength without--while all within was mute.     It seasoned comfort to our hearts' desire,     We felt thy kind protection like a friend     And edged our chairs up closer to the fire,     Enjoying comfort that was never penned.     Old favourite tree, thou'st seen time's changes lower,     Though change till now did never injure thee;     For time beheld thee as her sacred dower     And nature claimed thee her domestic tree.     Storms came and shook thee many a weary hour,     Yet stedfast to thy home thy roots have been;     Summers of thirst parched round thy homely bower     Till earth grew iron--still thy leaves were green.     The children sought thee in thy summer shade     And made their playhouse rings of stick and stone;     The mavis sang and felt himself alone     While in thy leaves his early nest was made.     And I did feel his happiness mine own,     Nought heeding that our friendship was betrayed,     Friend not inanimate--though stocks and stones     There are, and many formed of flesh and bones.     Thou owned a language by which hearts are stirred     Deeper than by a feeling clothed in word,     And speakest now what's known of every tongue,     Language of pity and the force of wrong.     What cant assumes, what hypocrites will dare,     Speaks home to truth and shows it what they are.     I see a picture which thy fate displays     And learn a lesson from thy destiny;     Self-interest saw thee stand in freedom's ways--     So thy old shadow must a tyrant be.     Tnou'st heard the knave, abusing those in power,     Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free;     Thou'st sheltered hypocrites in many a shower,     That when in power would never shelter thee.     Thou'st heard the knave supply his canting powers     With wrong's illusions when he wanted friends;     That bawled for shelter when he lived in showers     And when clouds vanished made thy shade amends--     With axe at root he felled thee to the ground     And barked of freedom--O I hate the sound     Time hears its visions speak,--and age sublime     Hath made thee a disciple unto time.     --It grows the cant term of enslaving tools     To wrong another by the name of right;     Thus came enclosure--ruin was its guide,     But freedom's cottage soon was thrust aside     And workhouse prisons raised upon the site.     Een nature's dwellings far away from men,     The common heath, became the spoiler's prey;     The rabbit had not where to make his den     And labour's only cow was drove away.     No matter--wrong was right and right was wrong,     And freedom's bawl was sanction to the song.     --Such was thy ruin, music-making elm;     The right of freedom was to injure thine:     As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm     In freedom's name the little that is mine.     And there are knaves that brawl for better laws     And cant of tyranny in stronger power     Who glut their vile unsatiated maws     And freedom's birthright from the weak devour.