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 | The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer |  |
REPLY OF THE GREAT OAK AT GENESEO TO THE CHARTER OAK AT HARTFORD.
Towers, athlete-like, the oak.”
For missive unto me addrest!
The fay, who bore thy greeting fair,
Is waiting my response to bear;
And while his acorn-cup is filled
With nectar by the night distilled,
And, full of mischief, banquets he
On luscious comb of swarming bee,
I'll mar, with crabbed lines of age,
The greenness of this leafy page.
Have poured their golden sunlight down—
Winds of a thousand winters wild
Snows at my feet have high up-piled,
And still my venerable form
Towers, in defiance of the storm.
I stand, a melancholy tree,
In valley of the Genesee—
My throne is on the river bank,
Once dark with oaks that, rank on rank,
Raised their proud, rustling plumes on high,
Encased in barken panoply.
From acorns, sown by me, they sprung,
For the bright axe their knell hath rung,
A king of realm and subjects reft.
Unsound am I at heart—and clay
Is crumbling from my roots away,
As if my mother earth would shun
In his decline her royal son.
Tall elk have grazed, wild antlered brows:
Crouching for prey, on mossy limb,
My leaves have screened the panther grim,
And I have heard the mammoth's roar
A few years since, the skeleton of a mammoth was exhumed, within two miles of the site of the Great Oak of Geneseo, from a marshy spot, near a spring on the upland height, near were Temple Hill Academy now stands. The bones were too much decayed for preservation, except the teeth which may still be seen.
Shake, far and wide, the forest-floor.
Since rose, by light and rain-drops fed,
From forest-mould my branching head,
Like flowers have flourished and declined
The wasting tribes of human kind.
Above their unrecorded graves
Primeval wood no longer waves;
But flinty implements of chase,
That tell of a forgotten race,
While furrow broad his plough-share turns,
Oft the brown husbandman discerns.
These meadows, is of modern date—
Long ere his blazing camp-fire shed
On yon dark river gleam of red,
A people, now extinct, possest
There is a tradition among the Senecas that a people formerly lived in the Genesee valley who tilled the earth like the white man, and who were skilled in many useful and ornamental arts. Remains of their pottery may still be seen. They were exterminated by tribes of the Algonquin stock, who were in turn subdued by the conquering Iroquois, styled by the Jesuits the Romans of the west. The “Reply of the Great Oak,” which was suggested by a letter from the Charter Oak of Connecticut, to the Great Oak at Geneseo, written by Mrs. Sigourney, appeared a few months ago in Graham's Magazine, and though not strictly a legend, was deemed worthy of a place in this collection, by reason of its reference to some old traditions.
This vale with health and beauty blest.
They reared their tent-poles in my shade,
First fruits on smoking altars laid:
With blood they reddened not the sod,
Nor shaded trail of battle trod;
And skilled were they in peaceful arts,
For love found harbor in their hearts.
In evil hour, a robber horde—
This harmless race they hunted down,
As wolves shy deer in forest brown;
To flame their pleasant hamlets gave,
To young and old a common grave.
Brief reign the conquerors enjoyed,
By fiercer foes in turn destroyed:
Braves of bold port and haughty crest,
Well named the “Romans of the West,”
For signal was their triumph shout
That tribes from earth were rooted out.
Gone are the Aganuschion now;
Pale children of the rising sun
At length the mastery have won—
Their painted structures crown the height
With roofs and spires, in sunshine bright;
Changed is wide wood to thymy mead,
Where “lordly horse” and heifer feed,
And commerce guides her freighted ark
Where the plumed Indian steered his bark.
When through my top the night-wind sings,
Forsake the dust old forest-kings;
Around my patriarchal bole,
While near the moon-lit waters roll,
They meet, a throng of shadows frail,
Chanting a low and mournful wail.
Patient of toil and strong of hand,
Who left New England homes to rear
An empire's proud foundation here.
Beneath the landscape's verdure bright
They rescued from domain of night
Their consecrated bones repose.
Ancient brother, in their fame
Equal honor may we claim!
Bound are thy coiled roots to earth
In the land that gave them birth,
Near thee were their cradles made,
They in childhood near thee played;
But a realm of virgin soil
Was their theatre of toil.
Here their iron manhood passed—
Here they won the prize at last—
Here their funeral hillocks rise
Linked with holy memories.—
Have I written all have fled
To the country of the dead?
Still a cherished few remain,
Bright links of a broken chain!
Lord of those hills, these pastures green,
And foremost of the Pioneers,
In the pale winter of his years
Yet lives with youthful strength endowed,
And sends like me, though worn and old,
To scythe-armed Time defiance bold.
The name he bears that warrior bore
“The lights were instantly extinguished, and one Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, in the most silent and secret manner carried off the charter, and secreted it in a large hollow tree.”—
Connecticut Historical Collections.The venerable James Wadsworth, since this poem was written, has paid the debt of nature. His efforts in the cause of education.
“Will long keep his memory green in our souls.”Who hid, when night dusk mantle wore,
Deep in thy gray and caverned bole
Insulted Freedom's parchment-scroll.
Brave men, who, in a desert lone
To lay a nation's corner-stone,
The joys of polished life forsake,
And solitude's long slumber break—
Dread pangs of thirst and hunger bear,
And Genius of Distemper dare,—
Than ever followed martial deed.
Late to their graves such men should go,
For them the tide of song should flow,
And generations, as they pass
Like chasing rain-drops down the glass,
From age to age, with pious care,
Should tombs that hold their dust repair.
The raven croak prophetic word,
And voices, at deep midnight, cry:—
“The moment of thy fall is nigh!”
Boon nature's law must be obeyed,
Her debt by man and oak be paid—
But long at foot of Wyllis' Hill
In reply to an inquiry respecting this tree, (says Dr. Holmes,) a daughter of Secretary Wyllis wrote to me from Hartford, “That venerable tree which concealed the charter of our rights, stands at the foot of Wyllis' Hill. The first inhabitants of that name found it standing in the height of its glory. Age seems to have curtailed its branches, yet it is not exceeded in the height of its coloring, or richness of its foliage. The trunk measures twenty-one feet in circumference, and near seven in diameter. The cavity which was the asylum of our charter, was near the roots, and large enough to admit a child. Within a space of eight years that cavity has closed, as if it had fulfilled the divine purpose for which it had been reared.”
Thy stem may healthful juices fill!
Loved by the free-born and the brave,
Long may thine honored branches wave!
Neglected in my sad decline,
The fate of waning power is mine;
The vines that round me clung of yore
My rugged bark embrace no more,
And birds, that erst my praises trilled,
Their nests 'mid richer foliage build.
Gone is the glory of my prime,
And near is my appointed time—
Full grown I wrestled with the gale
When thou wert but a sapling frail—
Aye!—ere the warming breath of spring
Woke thee, a tender infant thing,
Red chiefs, in beaded garb array'd,
Held their war-councils in my shade.
Last of the wood, I lift my head,
My sylvan family are dead;
And may the blast soon pipe my knell—
Yours, while a twig remains—Farewell!
| The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer | |