makes it the emblem of his ambition. Years after, with white hairs and palsied limbs, he totters at noontide to lie within its shade and slumber, "perchance to dream" of that last sleep which can not be distant, and which "knows no waking." But has the oak changed? Mocker of the storm, stern darer of the lightning, there he stands, the same, and seemingly for ever. Challenger of Time, defier of earth's changes, there he stands the pride of the forest, satirizing, in his mute language, alike the variations of fortune and evanescence of man.
And he does all things in a grand, slow way, unlike other trees. In spring-time, when the aspen has showed for a month its young leaves of silver gray, when the beech has thrust forth its beautiful feathers, when the maple has made a red rain of its glowing blossoms upon the forest floor, the oak still looks as he did when January was frowning upon his branches. When the aspen has elaborated its small leaves into thick foliage, when the beech has spangled itself over with emerald, when the maple has hung upon its slender stems its broad pearl-lined verdure, no tint of green upon the oak. He stands yet in dark disdain, as if mourning the perished winter. But at last, when the woodland is smiling in its fully-developed glory, when the tardy blossoms of the locust and tulip-tree are drenching the air with delicious sweetness, then stirs the oak. Little brown things are scattered over his great boughs, which in due time become long, deep-veined leaves; and lo! the regal oak has donned his splendid robe. The summer passes, and the autumn comes. What stands at the corner of yon wood, swathed in a mantle of the true imperial? Crimsons, and yellows, and golden-browns are flashing all around him, as though there were a carnival among the trees, but no hue is brighter than that of the brave old oak in his robe of royal purple. And he is in no more haste to let that robe of his go than in putting it on. When the shrieking blasts have torn its mantle from every other tree, the oak still clings to his, as if he said to those shrieking blasts, "I defy your fury!" When the snow-bird comes twittering among the woods to tell them the snow will shortly be showering loose pearl all through their gaunt domains, the oak yet holds to his mantle, blanched and tattered though it be. High amid the snow-drifts, firm amid the blasts, the pale crackling leaves still
