Author Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE DEAD OAK. A Lawny glade within a forest's heart, A chamber in the palace of great Pan, Enfolds me; oh! the pomp of circling hills! Clouds of wide foliage hanging mass on mass O'er living timber columns numberless: Grey, golden, ruddy?gorgeous in the wealth Of their autumnal pageantry of tints, Like thunder-clouds in sunset's fading light. For Autumn, like a vagrant gipsy queen Of tawny brow, who charms away green leaves Upon her path, had o'er the plaited crowns Of the stern forest-kings her highway made, Mutt'ring prophetic spells of palmistry; A herald wild of Winter and Decay. But one tree in that still, embosom'd glade, Like one forlorn among a multitude, What now to it are Summer's braveries, Or Autumn's tints, or Winter's withering gripe? Spring may renew its brethren's verdant robes, And milky sap suckle their nippling buds, But thai tree's vital stream?it flows no more! Alas! that tree?that hollow, heartless tree! It only stands with naked, spectral arms Silently pointing into heaven's depth. Summer arrays the forest one green realm; But that tree in it, leafless, bare and lone, Doth stand unchanging, pointing into heaven. Autumn and Winter o'er the woodlands reign; When, like grey memories of youthful dreams, Wo trample withered 'neath our feet the leaves Which triumphed overhead all summer-tide; While stand their parents spreading naked arms Above them, perishing around their feet. But this one tree?this hollow, heartless tree, Where now its foliage to fade and fall? It stands unchanging?pointing into heaven. The same 'neath summer's sun and winter's storm, Neither can bid it bloom or blight it more. Yet once it spread, like its compeers around, A bowery labyrinth of limbs and leaves: One of the mighty living pillars reared T...