ON THE FALL OF AN ANCIENT OAK TREE

While onward moves each circling year

Thy mandates, Nature, all obey,

As with this moving, changeful sphere

The seasons change and never stay;

Old Oak, I to your place return,

Where late you stood, and viewing mourn,

For the great loss my heart sustained

When you declined, long will I sigh,

That hour when you no more remained

To cheer the summer, passing by;

No longer blessed my eager view,

But like some dying friend withdrew.

Though frequent, by that nipping frost,

The blast which cold November sends,

I saw your leafy honours lost;

Hope, for such losses, made amends:

The spring again beheld them grow,

And we were pleased, and so was you.

Since I your fatal fall survive,

Remembrance long shall hold you dear,

And bid some young successor live;

By sad Amyntor planted here;

Its buds to swell, its leaves to spread,

And shade the place when he is dead.

A prince among your towering race,

What more your vanished form endears

Is that your presence in this place

Had been at least one hundred years;

And men that long in dust have laid,

When boys, beneath your shadow played.

You had your time to feel the sun,

To wanton in his cheering ray;—

That time is past, your race is run,

And we have nothing more to say,

Than, may your oaken spirit go

Among Elysian oaks below.