| |
| TO yonder boughs that spread so wide, | |
| Beneath whose shade soft waters glide, | |
| Once more I take the well known way; | |
| With feeble step and tottering knee | |
| I sigh to reach my white-oak tree, | 5 |
| Where rosy health was wont to play. | |
| |
| If to the shades, consuming slow, | |
| The shadow of myself, I go, | |
| When I am gone, wilt thou remain!— | |
| From dust you rose, and grew like me; | 10 |
| I man became, and you a tree, | |
| Both natives of one grassy plain. | |
| |
| How much alike, yet not the same!— | |
| You could no kind protector claim; | |
| Alone you stood, to chance resign’d: | 15 |
| When winter came, with blustering sky, | |
| You fear’d its blasts—and so did I, | |
| And for warm suns in secret pined. | |
| |
| When vernal suns began to glow, | |
| You felt returning vigor flow, | 20 |
| Which once a year new leaves supplied; | |
| Like you, fine days I wish’d to see, | |
| And May was a sweet month to me, | |
| But when November came—I sigh’d. | |
| |
| If through your bark some ruffian arm | 25 |
| A mark impress’d, you took th’ alarm, | |
| And tears awhile I saw descend; | |
| Till nature’s kind maternal aid | |
| A plaister on your bruises laid, | |
| And bade your trickling sorrows end. | 30 |
| |
| Like you, I fear’d the lightning’s stroke, | |
| Whose flame dissolves the strength of oak, | |
| And ends at once this mortal dream;— | |
| You saw, with grief, the soil decay | |
| That from your roots was torn away; | 35 |
| You sigh’d—and cursed the stream. | |
| |
| With borrow’d earth, and busy spade, | |
| Around your roots new life I laid, | |
| While joy revived in every vein; | |
| (The care of man shall life impart—) | 40 |
| Though nature owns the aid of art, | |
| No art, immortal, makes her reign. | |
| |
| How much alike our fortune—say— | |
| Yet, why must I so soon decay, | |
| When thou hast scarcely reach’d thy prime— | 45 |
| Erect and tall, you joyous stand; | |
| The staff of age has found my hand, | |
| That guides me to the grave of time. | |
| |
| Could I, fair tree, like you resign, | |
| And banish all these fears of mine, | 50 |
| Gray hairs would be no cause of grief; | |
| Your blossoms die, but you remain, | |
| Your fruit lies scatter’d o’er the plain— | |
| Learn wisdom from the falling leaf. | |
| |
| As you survive by heaven’s decree, | 55 |
| Let wither’d flowers be thrown on me, | |
| Sad compensation for my doom, | |
| While winter-greens and withering pines, | |
| And cedars dark, and barren vines, | |
| Point out the lonely tomb. | 60 |
| |
| The enlivening sun that burns so bright, | |
| Ne’er had a noon without a night, | |
| So life and death agree; | |
| The joys of man by years are broke—” | |
| ’T was thus the man of ninety spoke. | 65 |
| Then rose, and left his tree. | |
| |
