A New Year's Eve, and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

“And he who the ascending path-way scales,
By the gate above, and the mossy pales,
Will find the trunk of a leafless tree,
All bleak, and blighted, and bare;
Yet it keeps its station, and seems to be
Like a silent monitor there!”
From Playford, a descriptive Fragment.

I

Let loftier muses mourn the fall
Of heroes or of kings;
Enough for mine if she recall
More loved familiar things,—
Objects of retrospective thought,
With pure and peaceful visions fraught,
To which fond memory clings,
Because their unassuming worth
Outlives the form that gave them birth.

208

II

E'en such wert thou, my favourite tree;
Though leafless, scathed, and sere,
Once wont on this steep bank to be
That grey tower's hoary peer;
The summer's heat, the winter's storm,
Each, with its venerable form,
Had braved for many a year;
Yourselves the same in blooming spring,
And autumn's rich up-gathering.

III

Whether from skies of cloudless blue
The sun shone forth in pride,
Or the bright moon with silvery hue
In softer splendours vied;
Whether the snow, or hoar-frost bright
With sparkling gems, or robe of white
Your graceful garb supplied;
Yourselves unchangeably the same
Unvarying homage seemed to claim.

209

IV

To me you were like links between
The living and the dead;
One grey with moss, the other green
With ivy's twining thread;
Unconscious each of sight or sound
As those whose forms reposed around,
Each in its earthy bed;
Yet both, in majesty serene,
The silent guardians of the scene.

V

But Thou hast fallen! and in thy fall
A poet may deplore,
The loss of one memorial
Which time can ne'er restore:
Thy leafless boughs, and barkless stem,
So long that green bank's diadem,
Now greet my eye no more;
Nor can thy presence to my heart
Its treasured chronicles impart.

210

VI

For Fancy, when on thee I gazed,
By her creative power,
Her visionary fabrics raised
Of many a long-past hour;
Simple and lowly, yet as bright
As are the rainbow's tints of light
In summer's softest shower,
Or chastened by that milder shade
Which served their purer spell to aid.

VII

Since thou, that churchyard-gate beside,
First waved thy sapling bough,
Beneath thee many a blooming bride,
Fresh from the nuptial vow,
Hath passed with humble hopes elate!
And, slowly borne through that low gate,
What numbers, sleeping now
Beneath the green turf's flowery breast,
Have sought their quiet, dreamless rest.

211

VII

Under thy shadow, full of glee,
Have village children played;
And hoary age has seen in thee
Its own decline pourtrayed:
With human joys, griefs, hopes, and fears,
With humble smiles, and lowly tears,
Thy memory is arrayed;
And for their sakes, though reft and riven,
This record of thy fall is given.