It is the last survivor of a race

Strong in their forest-pride when I was young.
I can remember when, for miles around,

In place of those smooth meadows and corn fields,
There stood ten thousand tall and stately trees,
Such as had braved the winds of March, the bolt
Sent by the summer lightning, and the snow
Heaping for weeks their boughs. Even in the depth
Of hot July the glades were cool; the grass,
Yellow and parched elsewhere, grew long and fresh.
Shading wild strawberries and violets,

Or the lark's nest; and overhead the dove
Had her lone dwelling, paying for her home
With melancholy songs; and scarce a beech
Was there without a honeysuckle linked
Around, with its red tendrils and pink flowers;
Or girdled by a brier rose, whose buds
Yield fragrant harvest for the honey-bee.

There dwelt the last red deer, those antlered kings.
But this is as a dream,-the plough has passed
Where the stag bounded, and the day has looked

On the green twilight of the forest trees.

This oak has no companion!

*

LANDON.

THE OAK OF OUR FATHERS.

ALAS for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!

It grew and it flourished for many an age,
And many a tempest wreaked on it its rage;
But when its strong branches were bent with the blast,
It struck its root deeper, and flourished more fast.

Its head towered on high and its branches spread round:

For its roots had struck deep, and its heart was sound; The bees o'er its honey-dewed foliage played,

And the beasts of the forest fed under its shade.

The Oak of our Fathers to Freedom was lear;

Its leaves were her crown, and its wood was her

spear.

Alas for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood

In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood

THE OAK OF OUR FATHERS.

313

There crept up an ivy and clung round the trunk; It struck in its mouths and the juices it drunk; The branches grew sickly, deprived of their food, And the Oak was no longer the pride of the wood.

The foresters saw and they gathered around;

The roots still were fast, and the heart still was

sound;

They lopped off the boughs that so beautiful spread, But the ivy they spared on its vitals that fed.

No longer the bees o'er its honey-dews played, Nor the beasts of the forest fed under its shade; Lopped and mangled the trunk in its ruin is seen, A monument now what its beauty has been.

The Oak has received its incurable wound;

They have loosened the roots, though the heart may be sound;

What the travellers at distance green-flourishing see, Are the leaves of the ivy that poisoned the tree.

Alas for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!

JOUTHEY

THE DESERTED GARDEN.

I MIND me in the days departed,

How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run

To a garden long deserted.

The beds and walks were vanished quite ; And wheresoe'er had struck the spade,

The greenest grasses Nature laid,

To sanctify her right.

I called the place my wilderness,
For no one entered there but I.

The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,
And passed it ne'ertheless.

The trees were interwoven wild,
And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out,

But not a happy child.

THE DESERTED GARDEN.

Adventurous joy it was for me!

I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beneath a poplar-tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,
Bedropt with roses waxen white
Well satisfied with dew and light
And careless to be seen.

Long years ago it might befall,
When all the garden flowers were trim,
The grave old gardener prided him
On these the most of all.

Some lady, stately overmuch,

Here moving with a silken noise,

Has blushed beside them at the voice

That likened her to such.

And these, to make a diadem,

She often may have plucked and twined,
Half-smiling as it came to mind

That few would look at them.

Oh, little thought that lady proud,
A child would watch her fair white rose,

315