COW PER Seems sunk, and shortened to its tupmost boughs. Nor less attractive is the woodland scene, No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Diversified with trees of every growth, Tho' each its hue peculiar; paler some, Alike, yet various. Here the gay smooth And of a wannish gray; the willow such, trunks And poplar, that with silver lines its leaf, Of asb, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine, And ash for stretching his ombrageous arm; Within the twilight of their distant shades; Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still, There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak. SURVIVOR sole, and hardly such, of all, Thou wast a bauble once, a cap and ball, That once liv'd here, thy brethren, at my Which babes might play with; and the birth, thievish jay, Since which I number three-score winters Seeking her food, with ease might have past, purloin'd A shatter'd vetran, hollow-trunk'd perhaps, The auburn nut, that held thee, swallowing As now, and with excoriate forks deform, down Relicts of ages, could a mind, imbued Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs, With truth from Heav'n, created thing adore, And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp. I might with rev'rence kneel, and worship | But Fate tby growth decreed; autumpal thee! rains Beneath thy parent tree mellow'd the soil It seems idolatry with some excuse, Design'd thy cradle; and a skipping deer, Wben our forefather Druids in their oaks With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, preImagin'd sanctity. The conscience, yet par'd Unpurify'd by an authentic act The soft receptacle, in which, secure, Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine, Thy rudiments should sleep the winter Lov'd not ibe light, but, gloomy, into gloom through. So fancy dreams. Disprove it if ye can, With prominent wens globose-till at the last, The rottenness, which time is charg'd to inflict On other mighty ones, found also thce. Thon fell'st mature, and, in the loamy clod What exhibitions various hath the world Swelling with vegetative force instinct, Witness'd of mutability in all, Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled That we account most durable below ! Twins, Change is the diet, on which all subsist, Now stars. Two lobes, protrading, paird Created changeable, and change at last exact ; Destroys them. Skies uncertain, now the A leaf succeeded, and another leaf, heat And, all the elements thy puny growth Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam Post'ring propitious, thoa becam’st a twig. Now quenching in a boundless sea of clonds, Who liv'd, when thou wast such; On, Calm, and alternate storm, moisture, and could'st thou speak, drought, As in Dodona once thy kindred trees Invigorate by turns the springs of life Oracular, I would not curious ask In all that live, plant, animal, and man, The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth And in conclusion mar them. Nature's Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past ! threads, Fine, passing thought, e'en in her coarsest By thee I might correct, erroneous oft, works, The clock of history, facts and events Delight in agitation, yet sustain Timing more punctual, unrecorded faets The force that agitates, not unimpair’d, Recov'ring, and misstated setting right- But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause Desp'rate attempt, till trees shall speak Of their best tone their dissolation owe. again! Thought cannot spend itself, comparing Time made thee what thou wast, king of still the woods, The great and little of thy lot, thy growth And Time hath made thee what thou art- From almost nullity into a state a cave Of matchless grandeur, and declension For owls to roost in ! once thy spre ling thence, boughs Slow, into such magnificent decay. O’erbung the champaign; and the numerous Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fiy flocks, Could shake thee to the root--and time has That graz'd it, stood beneath that ample cope been Uncrouded, yet safe-shelter'd from the storm. When tempests could not. At thy firmest age No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast out Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents, liv'd That might have ribb’d the sides and plank'd Thy popularity, and art become the deck (Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing Of some flagg'd admiral, and tortuous arms, Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth ! The shipwright's darling treasure, didst pre sent While thus through all the stages thou To the four quarter'd winds, robust and bold, bast push'd Warp'd into tough knee-timber, * many a Of treeship-first a seedling, bid in grass ; load! Then twig; then sapling; and, as cent'ry rolla * Knee timber is found in the crooked Slow after century, a giant-bulk arms of oak, wbich by reason of their dis tortion, are easily adjusted to the angle Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root formed where the deck and the ship's sides Upheav'd above the soil, and sides imboss'd meet. But the axe spar'd thee. In those thriftier But since, although well qualify'd by age, days To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply May be expected from thee, seated here The bottomless demands of contest, wag'd On thy distorted root, with hearers none, For senatorial honours. Thus to Time Or prompter, save the scene, I will perform The task was left to whittle thee away Myself the oracle, and will discourse With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling In my own ear such matter as I may. edge, Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more, One man alone, the father of us all, Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserv'd, Drew not his life from woman; never gaz'd Achiev'd a labour, which had far and wide, With mute unconsciousness of what he saw, By man perform’d, made all the forest ring. On all around him; learn'd not by degrees, Nor owed articulation to his ear; Embowell'd now, and of thy ancient self But, moulded by his Maker into man Possessing nought, but the scoop'd rind, that At once, upstood intelligent, survey'd seems All creatures, with precision understood An huge throat, calling to the clouds for drink Their purport, uses, properties, assign'd Which it would give in rivulets to thy root, To each his name significant, and, fill'd Thou temptest none, but rather much for- With love and wisdom, render'd back to bidd'st Heav'n The feller's toil, which thou could'st ill re- In praise harmonious the first air he drew. quite. He was excus'd the penalties of dull Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock, Minority. No tutor charg'd his band A quarry of stout spurs, and knotted fangs, With the thought-tracing quill, or task'd his Which crook'd into a thousand whimsies, mind clasp With problems. History, not wanted yet The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect. Lean'd on her elbow, watching Time, whose course, So stands a kingdom,whose foundation yet Eventful, should supply her with a theme. Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, Tho' all the superstructure, by the tooth Palveriz'd of venality, a shell Stands now and semblance only of itself! Thine arms have left thee. Winds have THE PALMETTO. torn them off GAY Long since, and rovers of the forest wild, With bow and shaft, have burnt them. Some Yet let me in some odorous shade repose, have 'left Wbilst in my verse the fair palmetto grows : A splinter'd stump, bleach'd to a snowy Like the tall pine it shoots its stately head, white; From the broad top depending branches And some, memorial none where once they spread; grew. No knotty limbs the taper body bears, Yet still life lingers in thee, and puts forth, Hang on each bough a single leaf appears, Proof not contemplible of what she can, Which, shrivell'd in its infancy, remains Even where death predominates. The spring Like a clos'd fan, nor stretches wide its Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force Than yonder upstarts of the neighb'ring But, as the seasons in their circle run, wood, Opes its ripp'd surface to the nearer sun, So much thy juniors, who their birth re- Beneath this shade the weary peasant lies, ceiv'd Plucks the broad leaf, and bids the breezes Half a millenvium since the date of thine. rise. veins; THE UPAS TREE. Lo! from one root, the envenomed soil below, DARWIN. A thousand vegetative serpents grow ; WHERE seas of glass with gay reflection In shining rays the scaly monster spreads smile O'er ten square leagues his far-diverging Round the green coasts of Java's palmy isle, heads; A spacious plain extends its upland scene, Or in one trunk entwists his tangled forin, Rocks rise on rocks, and fountains gush be- Looks o'er the clouds and hisses in the storm. Iween; Suft zephyrs blow, eternal summer's reign, Steep'd in fell poison, as his sharp teeth And showers prolific bless the soil,--in vain! part, A thousand tongues in quick vibration dart; No spicy nutmeg scents the vernal gales, Snatch the proud eagle towering o'er the No towering plantain shades the mid-day heath, vales; Or pounce the lion as be stalks beneath ; No grassy mantle hides the sable hills, Or strew, as marshall'd hosts contend in vain No flowery chaplet crowns the trickling With human skeletons the whiten'd plain. rills ; Nor tufted moss, nor leathery lichen creeps Chaiu'd at his root two scion-demons In russet tapestry o'er the crumbling steeps. dwell, Breathe the faint hiss, or try the shriller yell; No step retreating, on the sand impress’d, Rise, fluttering in the air with callow wings, Invites the visit of a second guest; And aim at insect-prey their little stings. No refluent fin tbe unpeopled stream divides, So Time's strong arms with sweeping scythe No revolant pinions cleave the airy tides; Nor handed moles, nor beaked worms re- Art's cumbrous works, and empires, from turn, their base : That mining pass the irremeable bourn.- While each young hour its sickle fine em Fierce in dread silence, on the blasted heath, ploys, Fell Upas sits, the HYDRA-TREE of death. And crops the sweet buds of domestic joys. erase TO A DEAD TREE. CLARE. OLD tree thou art wither’d-I pass'd thee last year, How alterid since then ! not a leaf hast thou got, I think while I view thee and rest on the stile |