My Mind and its Thoughts, in Sketches, Fragments, and Essays

The Tree which my forefathers planted and reared,
To me, by THE FAME of their virtue's endeared;
Has flourished with them—like them, in their prime,
Exotic—yet genial, in nature and clime:
That tree waves its branches of verdure and bloom,
They, fading, are lost in the deep of the tomb,
Yet dear is the hill, and the grove, and the plain,
Which no more to the PLANTS OF THE MANSION remain,
Plants nursed in thy shadow, all sportive and free,
Or, stretched at thy foot, seemed as blooming as thee.
Those plants all have perished, and strangers are known,
To reap the rich field, which affection had sown.
And yet the young scion, transferred to my care,
As if the quick sense of my fathers were there,

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Is tender, yet brilliant, in stem and in leaf,
And cheers me in sadness, and soothes me in grief.
For can I forget, as I gaze upon thee,
How many the branches, how mighty the tree.

This may be said to apply literally, and metaphorically; literally, in allusion to that genealogical tree, which every Welsh gentleman is sure to possess, and to preserve; metaphorically, as to the living branches of a family, nearly all lost in the deep of the tomb.

Whence grew the weak form, and the features so pale,
Of BOTH—as WE bend to the merciless gale
Of seasons—by hardness, or elements blown,
To kill the firm hope, but in solitude known.
Of calm to the scene, and of grace to the mind,
If lonely, yet social—if injured, yet kind.

University of Virginia Library

LINES,

TO THE SCION OF THE TULIP TREE, SHADING THE RURAL HOME OF MY ANCESTORS.