 | The Works of Thomas Love Peacock |  |
231
LINES TO A FAVOURITE LAUREL
IN THE GARDEN AT ANKERWYKE COTTAGE
How changed this lonely scene! the rank weed chokes
The garden flowers: the thistle's towering growth
Waves o'er the untrodden paths: the rose that breathed
Diffusive fragrance from its christening bed,
Scarce by a single bud denotes the spot
Where glowed its countless bloom: the woodbine droops
And trails along the ground, and wreathes no more
Around the light verandah's pillared shade
The tendrils of its sweetness: the green shrubs,
That made even winter gay, have felt themselves
The power of change, and mournful is the sound
Of evening's twilight gale, that shrilly sweeps
Their brown and sapless leaves.
The garden flowers: the thistle's towering growth
Waves o'er the untrodden paths: the rose that breathed
Diffusive fragrance from its christening bed,
Scarce by a single bud denotes the spot
Where glowed its countless bloom: the woodbine droops
And trails along the ground, and wreathes no more
Around the light verandah's pillared shade
The tendrils of its sweetness: the green shrubs,
That made even winter gay, have felt themselves
The power of change, and mournful is the sound
Of evening's twilight gale, that shrilly sweeps
Their brown and sapless leaves.
But thou remain'st
Unaltered save in beauty: thou alone,
Amid neglect and desolation, spread'st
The rich luxuriance of thy foliage still,
More rich and more luxuriant now, than when,
Mid all the gay parterre, I called thee first
My favourite laurel: and 'tis something yet,
Even in this world where Ahrimanes reigns
To think that thou, my favourite, hast been left
Unharmed amid the inclemency of time,
While all around thee withered.
Unaltered save in beauty: thou alone,
Amid neglect and desolation, spread'st
The rich luxuriance of thy foliage still,
More rich and more luxuriant now, than when,
Mid all the gay parterre, I called thee first
My favourite laurel: and 'tis something yet,
Even in this world where Ahrimanes reigns
To think that thou, my favourite, hast been left
232
While all around thee withered.
Lovely tree!
There is a solemn aspect in thy shade,
A mystic whisper in the evening gale,
That murmurs through thy boughs; it breathes of peace,
Of rest, to one, who, having trodden long
The thorny paths of this malignant world,
Full fain would make the moss that tufts thy root
The pillow of his slumber.
There is a solemn aspect in thy shade,
A mystic whisper in the evening gale,
That murmurs through thy boughs; it breathes of peace,
Of rest, to one, who, having trodden long
The thorny paths of this malignant world,
Full fain would make the moss that tufts thy root
The pillow of his slumber.
Many a bard,
Beneath some favourite tree, oak, beech, or pine,
Has by the pensive music of the breeze,
Been soothed to transient rest: but thou canst shed
A mightier spell: the murmur of thy leaves
Is full of meaning; and their influence,
Accessible to resolution, yields
No evanescent balm, but pours at once
Through all the sufferer's frame, the sweetest sleep
The weary pilgrim of the earth can know:
The long, oblivious, everlasting sleep
Of that last night on which no morn shall rise.
Beneath some favourite tree, oak, beech, or pine,
Has by the pensive music of the breeze,
Been soothed to transient rest: but thou canst shed
A mightier spell: the murmur of thy leaves
Is full of meaning; and their influence,
Accessible to resolution, yields
No evanescent balm, but pours at once
Through all the sufferer's frame, the sweetest sleep
The weary pilgrim of the earth can know:
The long, oblivious, everlasting sleep
Of that last night on which no morn shall rise.
| The Works of Thomas Love Peacock | |