Poems (Allen)/Rothermel's Willow

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

ROTHERMEL'S WILLOW.

VER my neighbor's garden wall There leans a willow-tree, fair and tall,—{{{text}}}A weeping willow, whose long boughs sigh, And shiver, and sob, as the winds go by,

Like a sorrowful woman, standing there With drooping garments and drifting hair.

And its branches move, as it grieving stands, With a motion that seems like the wringing of hands.

Why does it mourn so, night and day, And why do its tresses drift this way?

Why does it seem that the striving tree Has some sad message to speak to me?

For hark! in the branches' swinging sweep There comes a whisper like "Weep, O weep!"

*****

Through all the winter-time, cold and bare, It shivered and sobbed in the bitter air,

Shaping its sorrow in longing words Of last year's rain-drops and singing-birds.—

So sad and regretful his life must be Who lives not on hope, but memory!—

And all the winter the grieving tree Had something mournful to say to me.

So it wept and murmured, till, by and by, There fell a smile from the pitying sky;

And the long limbs paused in their hopeless beat, And their talk of a grave and a winding-sheet,—

Trying to fashion a merrier rhyme, A song more meet for the summer-time,—

While the limber branches of silver-gray Grew lithe and living from day to day,

Till, when the mornings grew warm and strange, There came a wondrous and beautiful change,—

So gradual, silent, and full of doubt, One scarce dared say that the leaves were out,

Though every trailing limb was seenBegirt with a halo of delicate green.

Yet, all the spring-time, the sighing tree Had something mournful to say to me.

*****

And now the summer-time, wide and free, Broadens and brightens on town and tree;

But still does the willow strive and yearn, While rain-showers gather and sunbeams burn.

Often and often I turn away From my steady vigils by night and day,—

From the patient eyes, and the paling cheek, And the pallid fingers, so wan and weak,

Of one who has pined through many a day For the gracious airs of the genial May,

To watch the strife of the restless tree, And wonder what it would say to me.

For still in the branches' drifting sweep There comes a whisper like "Weep, O weep !"