Or, if he prove unkind, (as who can say But, being man, and therefore frail, he may,) One comfort yet shall cheer thine aged heart, Howe'er he slight thee, thou hast done thy part.
Oh barbarous! wouldst thou with a Gothic hand Pull down the schools-what!—all the schools i' the Or throw them up to livery-nags and grooms, [land? Or turn them into shops and auction-rooms? -A captious question, Sir, (and yours is one,) Deserves an answer similar, or none.
Wouldst thou, possessor of a flock, employ (Apprized that he is such) a careless boy, And feed him well, and give him handsome pay, Merely to sleep, and let them run astray? Survey our schools and colleges, and see A sight not much unlike my simile. From education, as the leading cause, The public character its colour draws; Thence the prevailing manners take their cast, Extravagant or sober, loose or chaste.
And, though I would not advertise them yet, Nor write on each-This Building to be let, Unless the world were all prepared to embrace A plan well worthy to supply their place; Yet, backward as they are, and long have been, To cultivate and keep the MORALs clean, (Forgive the crime) I wish them, I confess, Or better managed, or encouraged less.
SURVIVOR Sole, and hardly such, of all That once lived here, thy brethren, at my birth, (Since which I number threescore winters past,) A shatter'd veteran, hollow-trunk'd, perhaps, 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 purloin'd 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 mellow'd the soil Design'd 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, employ'd too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasure of short life away!
Thou fell'st mature; and, in the loamy clod Swelling with vegetative force extinct,
Didst burn thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins, Now stars; two lobes, protruding, pair'd 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
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 mis-stated 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 shelter'd from the storm. No flock frequents thee now.
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 push'd
Of treeship-first a seedling, hid in grass; Then twig; then sapling; and, as century roll'd
Slow after century, a giant-bulk
Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root Upheaved above the soil, and sides emboss'd 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 Witness'd 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.
Fine passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,
Delight in agitation, yet sustain
The force that agitates not unimpair'd;
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 ribb'd the sides and plank'd the deck Of some flagg'd admiral; and tortuous arms,
The shipwright's darling treasure, didst present To the four-quarter'd winds, robust and bold, Warp'd into tough knee-timber many a load!* 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 perform'd, made all the forest ring. Embowell'd now, and of thy ancient self Possessing nought but the scoop'd rind, that seems An huge throat calling to the clouds for drink, Which it would give in rivulets to thy root, Thou temptest none, but rather much forbidd'st 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, crook'd 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 Pulverised 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
* 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.
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