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(Excerpt)
DID ever it come in your way to pass | |
| The silvery pond, with its fringe of grass; | |
| And, threading the lane hard by, to see | |
| The veteran elm of Newbury? | |
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| You saw how its roots had grasped the ground, | 5 |
| As if it had felt that the earth went round, | |
| And fastened them down with determined will | |
| To keep it steady, and hold it still. | |
| Its aged trunk, so stately and strong, | |
| Has braved the blasts, as they ’ve rushed along; | 10 |
| Its head has towered, and its arms have spread, | |
| While more than a hundred years have fled! | |
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| Well, that old elm, that is now so grand, | |
| Was once a twig in the rustic hand | |
| Of a youthful peasant, who went one night | 15 |
| To visit his love, by the tender light | |
| Of the modest moon and her twinkling host, | |
| While the star that lighted his bosom most, | |
| And gave to his lonely feet their speed, | |
| Abode in a cottage beyond the mead! * * * * * | 20 |
| It is not recorded how long he stayed | |
| In the cheerful home of the smiling maid; | |
| But when he came out, it was late and dark, | |
| And silent,—not even a dog would bark, | |
| To take from his feeling of loneliness, | 25 |
| And make the length of his way seem less. | |
| He thought it was strange, that the treacherous moon | |
| Should have given the world the slip so soon; | |
| And, whether the eyes of the girl had made | |
| The stars of the sky in his own to fade, | 30 |
| Or not, it certainly seemed to him | |
| That each grew distant and small and dim; | |
| And he shuddered to think he now was about | |
| To take a long and a lonely route; | |
| For he did not know what fearful sight | 35 |
| Might come to him through the shadows of night! | |
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| An elm grew close by the cottage’s eaves; | |
| So he plucked him a twig well clothed with leaves, | |
| And sallying forth with the supple arm, | |
| To serve as a talisman parrying harm, | 40 |
| He felt that, though his heart was so big, | |
| ’T was even the stouter for having the twig. | |
| For this, he thought, would answer to switch | |
| The horrors away, as he crossed the ditch, | |
| The meadow and copse, wherein, perchance, | 45 |
| Will-o’-the-wisp might wickedly dance; | |
| And, wielding it, keep him from having a chill | |
| At the menacing sound of “Whip-poor-will!” | |
| And his flesh from creeping beside the bog | |
| At the harsh, bass voice of the viewless frog: | 50 |
| In short, he felt that the switch would be | |
| Guard, plaything, business, and company. | |
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| When he got safe home, and joyfully found | |
| He still was himself! and living! and sound! | |
| He planted the twig by his family cot, | 55 |
| To stand as a monument, marking the spot | |
| It helped him to reach; and, what was still more, | |
| Because it had grown by his fair one’s door. | |
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| The twig took root; and as time flew by, | |
| Its boughs spread wide, and its head grew high; | 60 |
| While the priest’s good service had long been done, | |
| Which made the youth and the maiden one; | |
| And their young scions arose and played | |
| Around the tree, in its leafy shade. | |
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| But many and many a year has fled | 65 |
| Since they were gathered among the dead; | |
| And now their names, with the moss o’ergrown, | |
| Are veiled from sight on the churchyard stone | |
| That leans away, in a lingering fall, | |
| And owns the power that shall level all | 70 |
| The works that the hand of man hath wrought; | |
| Bring him to dust, and his name to naught. | |
| While, near in view, and just beyond | |
| The grassy skirts of the silver pond, | |
| In its “green old age,” stands the noble tree, | 75 |
| The veteran elm of Newbury. | |
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