LAMENT OF THE FALLEN OAK
"Alas, and is it true that I no more
Shall stand in pride and beauty as of yore,
Strength for my throne and grandeur for my crown,
Might for my scepter? Who has thrown me down?
Who dared to smite the monarch of the wood?
I, who for many centuries withstood
The storm-king's anger and the wind-fiend's wrath
Dethroning many others in their path,
Stripping the leafy forests, thundering
Down the wild canyons, ever muttering
In baffled rage as firm beneath their frown
I stood, defying aught to tear me down.
The forest fires lit up the woods with flame
I knew not where they went or whence they came,
The crackling underbrush, the blazing grass,
Smoldered to ashes, and I saw them pass;
Flame after flame in madness leaping high
Lighting the woods, the mountains and the sky;
Yet stood I like some armored, dauntless knight
Unscathed, unshrinking in the thickest fight;
Even the long, grey, lightly flowing moss
On limb and twig still free in sport to toss
To every breeze that hummed its lullaby
Through the high branches of the old oak tree.
The sound of the wood-chopper as at morn
Waked the still echoes and as downward borne
To the same soil from which they one day sprang
The trees returned, the dim old forest rang.
Crash! And the highest were forever low;
Then fell the chopper's axe, blow after blow
Resounding through the forest 'till at last
Nothing was left to whisper of their past
But the low stumps decaying in the ground
And the dry brush of branches strewn around;
Shall stand in pride and beauty as of yore,
Strength for my throne and grandeur for my crown,
Might for my scepter? Who has thrown me down?
Who dared to smite the monarch of the wood?
I, who for many centuries withstood
The storm-king's anger and the wind-fiend's wrath
Dethroning many others in their path,
Stripping the leafy forests, thundering
Down the wild canyons, ever muttering
In baffled rage as firm beneath their frown
I stood, defying aught to tear me down.
The forest fires lit up the woods with flame
I knew not where they went or whence they came,
The crackling underbrush, the blazing grass,
Smoldered to ashes, and I saw them pass;
Flame after flame in madness leaping high
Lighting the woods, the mountains and the sky;
Yet stood I like some armored, dauntless knight
Unscathed, unshrinking in the thickest fight;
Even the long, grey, lightly flowing moss
On limb and twig still free in sport to toss
To every breeze that hummed its lullaby
Through the high branches of the old oak tree.
The sound of the wood-chopper as at morn
Waked the still echoes and as downward borne
To the same soil from which they one day sprang
The trees returned, the dim old forest rang.
Crash! And the highest were forever low;
Then fell the chopper's axe, blow after blow
Resounding through the forest 'till at last
Nothing was left to whisper of their past
But the low stumps decaying in the ground
And the dry brush of branches strewn around;
[ 178 ]
