| |
| THIS sole survivor of a race | |
| Of giant oaks, where once the wood | |
| Rang with the battle or the chase, | |
| In stern and lonely grandeur stood. | |
| |
| From age to age it slowly spread | 5 |
| Its gradual boughs to sun and wind; | |
| From age to age its noble head | |
| As slowly withered and declined. | |
| |
| A thousand years are like a day, | |
| When fled; no longer known than seen: | 10 |
| This tree was doomed to pass away, | |
| And be as if it ne’er had been; | |
| |
| But mournful Cowper, wandering nigh, | |
| For rest beneath its shadow came, | |
| When, lo! the voice of days gone by | 15 |
| Ascended from its hollow frame. | |
| |
| O that the poet had revealed | |
| The words of those prophetic strains, | |
| Ere death the eternal mystery sealed! | |
| Yet in his song the oak remains. | 20 |
| |
| And, fresh in undecaying prime, | |
| There may it live, beyond the power | |
| Of storm and earthquake, man and time, | |
| Till nature’s conflagration-hour. | |
| |
