Yardley Oak.[1]

Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all     That once lived here, thy brethren, at my birth     (Since which I number threescore winters past),     A shatterd veteran, hollow-trunkd 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 purloind     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 mellowd the soil     Designd 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 you can,     Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search     Of argument, employd too oft amiss,     Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!     Thou fellst 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, paird 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     Oracular, 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 arta cave     For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs     Oerhung the champaign; and the numerous flocks     That grazed it stood beneath that ample cope     Uncrowded, yet safe shelterd 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 pushd     Of treeshipfirst a seedling, hid in grass;     Then twig; then sapling; and, as century rolld     Slow after century, a giant bulk     Of girth enormous, with moss-cushiond root     Upheaved above the soil, and sides embossd     With prominent wens globosetill at the last     The rottenness, which time is charged to inflict     On other mighty ones, found also thee.     What exhibitions various hath the world     Witnessd 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. Natures threads,     Fine passing thought, een in their coarsest works,     Delight in agitation, yet sustain     The force that agitates not unimpaird;     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 rootand time has been     When tempests could not. At thy firmest age     Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents     That might have ribbd the sides and plankd the deck     Of some flaggd admiral; and tortuous arms,     The shipwrights darling treasure, didst present     To the four-quarterd winds, robust and bold,     Warpd into tough knee-timber, many a load![2]     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 performd, made all the forest ring.     Embowelld now, and of thy ancient self     Possessing nought but the scoopd 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 forbiddst     The fellers toil, which thou couldst ill requite.     Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock,     A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs,     Which, crookd 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. Winds have rent them off     Long since, and rovers of the forest wild     With bow and shaft have burnt them. Some have left     A splinterd stump bleachd 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; learnd not by degrees,     Nor owed articulation to his ear;     But, moulded by his Maker into man     At once, upstood intelligent, surveyd     All creatures, with precision understood     Their purport, uses, properties, assignd     To each his name significant, and, filld     With love and wisdom, renderd back to Heaven     In praise harmonious the first air he drew.     He was excused the penalties of dull     Minority. No tutor charged his hand     With the thought-tracing quill, or taskd his mind     With problems. History, not wanted yet,     Leand on her elbow, watching time, whose course,     Eventful, should supply her with a theme.