THE WASHINGTON ELM,
AT CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.
Words! Words, Old Tree! Thou hast an aspect fair,
A vigorous heart, a heaven-aspiring crest,
And sleepless memories of the days that were
Lodge in thy branches, like the song-bird's nest.
Words! give us words! Methought a gathering blast
Mid its green leaves began to murmur low,
Shaping its utterance to the mighty Past,
That backward came, on pinions floating slow.
"The ancient masters of the soil I knew,
Whose cane-roofed wigwams flecked the forest brown,
Their hunter-footsteps swept the early dew,
And their keen arrow struck the eagle down.
I heard the bleak December tempest moan,
When the tossed May-Flower moored in Plymouth Bay;
And watched yon classic walls, as stone by stone
The fathers reared them slowly towards the day.
