Lays of the Highlands and Islands By John Stuart Blackie |
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| III. | IIITO
AN OLD LEAFLESS TREE ON THE MOOR,
NEAR KING'S HOUSE. |
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 | Lays of the Highlands and Islands |  |
91
III
TO
AN OLD LEAFLESS TREE ON THE MOOR,
NEAR KING'S HOUSE.
Poor wreck of the old forest, gaunt and grim,
No leafy fan, no soft green shade is thine,
But thou hast charms will stir a rhymer's whim
To deck thy ruin with a random line.
Where be thy brothers? I have seen them show
Their prostrate roots beneath long-centuried peat
Mile after mile, where nothing now will grow
Verdant, for eye to love or mouth to eat.
But thou alone dost stand, like some old creed,
Erect, to show what price it had before,
When men believed it had a power indeed,
To soothe each sorrow, and to cleanse each sore;
Or, like a statesman by the moving time
Deserted, in his dry old strength sublime.
| Lays of the Highlands and Islands | |