Hymn for the Use of the Sunday School at Olney...... 87 Stanzas on a Bill of Mortality, 1787.............................................. MINOR POEMS. PART I. YARDLEY OAK. 1791. SURVIVOR Sole, and hardly such, of all That once lived here, thy brethren, at my birth As now, and with excoriate forks deform, When our forefather Druids in their oaks Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine, Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball, Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, But Fate thy growth decreed; autumnal rains Thou fell'st mature; and in the loamy clod Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins, And, all the elements thy puny growth Fostering propitious, thou becamest a twig. Who lived, when thou wast such? Oh, couldst thou As in Dodona once thy kindred trees Oracular, I would not curious ask The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth By thee I might correct, erroneous oft, [speak, Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts Desperate attempt, till trees shall speak again! Time made thee what thou wast, king of the woods; And Time hath made thee what thou art-a cave For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs O'erhung the champaign; and the numerous flocks, That grazed it, stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe-shelter'd from the storm. No flock frequents thee now. Thy popularity, and art become Thou hast outlived (Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth. While thus through all the stages thou hast push'd Of treeship-first a seedling hid in grass; Then twig; then sapling; and, as century roll'd Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root What exhibitions various hath the world That we account most durable below! Change is the diet on which all subsist, Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought, In all that live, plant, animal, and man, And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads, The force that agitates, not unimpair'd; Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence, Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly Could shake thee to the root-and time has been When tempests could not. At thy firmest age Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents, That might have ribb'd the sides and plank'd the deck * Knee-timber is found in the crooked arms of oak, which, by reason of their distortion, are easily adjusted to the angle formed where the deck and the ship's sides meet. |