Yet towering still above their sudden fall
I stood unshaken, monarch over all;
But now, alas, why vanished triumphs tell?
On me at last the lot of nature fell,
No storm of terror shook my bulwarks down
No war of elements laid low my crown,
No burning fiery furnace scathed my bark,
No lightning arrow chose me for its mark,
No feeble instrument in feebler hand
Forbade my leafy throne to longer stand;
But fell the gentle rain from clouds above
On field and forest, mountain, plain and grove
'Till countless springs stray rivulets supplied
And swelled the torrent to a rushing tide
'Till every hill-slope shone with silver threads,
With tiny pebbles in their shallow beds,
With sap refreshed and leaves of brighter green
I gazed in gladness on the freshened scene;
But every leaf was weighed with rain-drops down
And heavier grew my lofty, leafy crown.
The mistletoe adorning every bough
Seemed like a mighty weight of metal now,
And still the rain-drops fell though every hill
Seemed gushing forth in gurgling spring and rill;
And still the clouds poured down their crystal flood
Swelling each purling stream and bursting bud;
When a slight tremor through my being ran,
A shiver midst my highest twigs began,
A loosening midst the roots embedded deep
In the firm earth, where centuries saw them creep
'Till grown to giant strength and giant size
They bade the sapling high and higher rise;
Upheaving earth, uptearing rocks around—
Hush! Through the silent glades a thundering sound,
A crash of splintering boughs, an awful thud—
And then oppressive silence in the wood.
Alas, my fall! The little birds no more
I stood unshaken, monarch over all;
But now, alas, why vanished triumphs tell?
On me at last the lot of nature fell,
No storm of terror shook my bulwarks down
No war of elements laid low my crown,
No burning fiery furnace scathed my bark,
No lightning arrow chose me for its mark,
No feeble instrument in feebler hand
Forbade my leafy throne to longer stand;
But fell the gentle rain from clouds above
On field and forest, mountain, plain and grove
'Till countless springs stray rivulets supplied
And swelled the torrent to a rushing tide
'Till every hill-slope shone with silver threads,
With tiny pebbles in their shallow beds,
With sap refreshed and leaves of brighter green
I gazed in gladness on the freshened scene;
But every leaf was weighed with rain-drops down
And heavier grew my lofty, leafy crown.
The mistletoe adorning every bough
Seemed like a mighty weight of metal now,
And still the rain-drops fell though every hill
Seemed gushing forth in gurgling spring and rill;
And still the clouds poured down their crystal flood
Swelling each purling stream and bursting bud;
When a slight tremor through my being ran,
A shiver midst my highest twigs began,
A loosening midst the roots embedded deep
In the firm earth, where centuries saw them creep
'Till grown to giant strength and giant size
They bade the sapling high and higher rise;
Upheaving earth, uptearing rocks around—
Hush! Through the silent glades a thundering sound,
A crash of splintering boughs, an awful thud—
And then oppressive silence in the wood.
Alas, my fall! The little birds no more
[ 179 ]
