THE TALKING OAK ONCE more the gate behind me falls; Beyond the lodge the city lies, For when my passion first began, To yonder oak within the field For oft I talk'd with him apart, And answer'd with a voice. Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven I found him garrulously given, K The Talking Oak The Talking But since I heard him make reply Is ; hour Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,w0 Say thou, whereon I carved her name, As fair as To rest beneath thy boughs. A 'O Walter, I have shelter'd here to • Old Summers, when the monk was f Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, fat, And I have seen some score of those Fresh faces, that would thrive When his man-minded offset rose a 1 To chase the deer at five; And all that from the town would stroll, Till that wild wind made work In which the gloomy brewer's sou The slight she-slips of loyal blood, مان ملل • And I have shadow'd many a group Of beauties, that were born In tea-cup times of hood and hoop, Or while the patch was worn; • And, leg and arm with love-knots gay, The modest Cupid of the day, may 'I swear (and else Each leaf into a gall) insects prickaď This girl, for whom your heart is sick, For those and theirs, by Nature's law, But in these latter springs I saw From when she gamboll'd on the The maiden blossoms of her teens greens The Talking Oak I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, (And hear me with thine ears,) RE That, tho' I circle in the grain Five hundred rings of years-off Yet, since I first could cast a shade, For as to fairies, that will flit cesh But far too spare of flesh.'s olub Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, But thou, whereon I carved her name, Declare when last Olivia came big sldT "O yesterday, you know, the faired no fa 'And with him Albert came on his.now 4? 'An hour had past-and, sitting straight Within the low-wheel'd chaise, Her mother trundled to the gate Behind the dappled grays. 'But, as for her, she staid at home,niw [* She left the novel half-uncutivnees JoY She left the new piano shut : QOW EA Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, She sent her voice thro' all the holtprod 'A light wind chased her on the wing, But light as any wind that blows The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, 'And here she came, and round me play'd, The Talking Oak |