Poems (Eaton)/The Twin Pines
THE TWIN PINES.
TWO pine trees side by side are seen, Enclosed within my garden's bound,With robes of bright enduring green, And their own softly murmuring sound—So many years I've watched them grow, Their kindly look have daily met,That long-tried friends we seem, who know The love which never doth forget.
I've sat beneath their waving shade In many a lingering summer hour,And watched the streamlet as it played In graceful eddies round the shore,And giving to my fancy play, Have questioned these my fav'rite pines,Half hoping and half jestingly, Their being's mystery to untwine.
"Oh trees, that wave my head above, Some answer make, some token giveOf consciousness, that I may prove How much is worth the life ye live;Say do ye feel when friendly arm Around your rugged trunk I place,As mortals feel, with heart-throb warm, When thus they meet a friend's embrace?
"Where'er the wild bird sings, as now Upon your top, his clearest strains,Oh, springs there not from root to bough Deep joy within your wooded veins?And ever as that sweetest song, The shout of childhood's voice is heard,Say, as the echo thrills along Are not your tenderest pulses stirred?
"The fountain throwing playfully Its sparkling burden in your sight,The sunrise tinting earth and sky With heaven's own welcome glorious light,The thunder cloud, the lightning's dart, The flowers that blossom at your foot,Methinks these all should move your heart To rapture, though the voice be mute.
"'Twere sweet to fancy that ye love And share in all the joys I see,But sweeter still to seek and prove The blessedness of sympathy—In hours when sorrow bows the head, And blights the face of all below,We long for frienship's aid to shed Its precious light o'er human woe.
"When sickness seized our household band, Murmurs of love did you extend?As sorrow pressed with iron hand, Did your sad boughs with pity bend?And on that night when roused from sleep The burning homestead met our gaze,Did ghastly terror o'er you creep, As dumb, ye watched its lurid blaze?
"Upon that dark and mournful morn In which our eldest-born went forth,With manly courage girded on, To join the armies of the north—The wind that sighed your branches through, Breathed it of warning or success?Did ye waft forth a last adieu, Or safe return to happiness?
"Still silent friends! and is there yet To my fond search no answer given?Oh never then may I forget The trusting heart's appeal to heaven."The God alone, who made them, knows The bounded powers of shrub and tree,While on mortals He bestows His limitless eternity.
Glen-Echo Home, August, 1862.