And day by day some current's thwart- 15 Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste ing force 105 Sets me more distant from a pros'prous Of fruit proserib'd, as to a refuge, fled. Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball, Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd 20 The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs Beneath thy parent tree mellow'd the 25 Design'd thy cradle; and a skipping deer, With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe,1 The soft receptacle, in which, secure, So Fancy dreams.-Disprove it, if ye can, 30 Ye reas'ners broad awake, whose busy search Of argument, employ'd too oft amiss, Sifts half the pleasures of short life away. Thou fell'st mature, and in the loamy clod Swelling, with vegetative force instinct 35 Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins 40 45 Now stars; two lobes, protruding, pair'd exact; A leaf succeeded, and another leaf, Who liv'd when thou wast such? Oh, As in Dodona once thy kindred trees Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past. By thee I might correct, erroneous oft, The clock of history, facts and events Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts Recov'ring, and misstated setting right— Desp'rate attempt, till trees shall speak again! 65 Upheav'd above the soil, and sides emboss'd With prominent wens globose, till at the last The rottenness, which Time is charg'd t' inflict On other mighty ones, found also thee. Warp'd into tough knee-timber, many a load. 100 But the axe spared thee; in those thriftier days Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to The bottomless demands of contest wag'd What exhibitions various hath the world 105 With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling 70 Witness'd of mutability in all That we account most durable below! 75 Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam Now quenching in a boundless 'sea of clouds; Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought, Invigorate by turns the springs of life In all that live,-plant, animal, and man, 80 And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads, 110 edge, Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more, Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserv'd, Achiev'd a labor, which had, far and wide, (By man perform'd) made all the forest ring. Embowell'd now, and of thy ancient self Possessing nought but the scoop'd rind, that seems An huge throat calling to the clouds for drink, Which it would give in riv'lets to thy root, Thou temptest none, but rather much forbid 'st Fine passing thought, ev'n in her coars- 115 The feller's toil, which thou couldst ill est works, Delight in agitation, yet sustain cause 85 Of their best tone their dissolution owe. 1 field growths in the shape of globes 120 So stands a kingdom, whose founda- 160 Lean'd on her elbow, watching Time, whose tion yet Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, Though all the superstructure, by the tooth Pulveriz'd of venality, a shell Stands now, and semblance only of itself. 125 Thine arms have left thee. Winds have rent them off Long since, and rovers of the forest wild A splinter'd stump, bleach'd to a snowy And some memorial none, where once they grew. 130 Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts Proof not contemptible of what she can, Finds thee not less alive to her sweet Б course, Eventful, should supply her with a theme. The twentieth year is well-nigh past, Thy spirits have a fainter flow, I see thee daily weaker grow- Thy needles, once a shining store, Than yonder upstart of the neighboring 15 wood, 135 So much thy juniors, who their birth receiv'd Half a millennium since the date of thine. But since, although well qualified by age To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice May be expected from thee, seated here 140 On thy distorted root, with hearers none Or prompter, save the scene, I will perform Myself the oracle, and will discourse In my own ear such matter as I may. One man alone, the Father of us all, 145 Drew not his life from woman; gaz'd, never 20 My Mary! For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil But well thou play'd'st the housewife's And all thy threads with magic art Thy indistinct expressions seem 25 Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, With mute unconsciousness of what he 30 What sight worth seeing could I see? saw, On all around him; learn'd not by degrees, All creatures, with precision understood 155 In praise harmonious the first air he drew. With problems; history, not wanted yet, 50 No poet wept him: but the page That tells his name, his worth, his age, 55 I therefore purpose not, or dream, To give the melancholy theme A more enduring date: But misery still delights to trace 60 Its semblance in another's case. No voice divine the storm allay'd, 65 But I beneath a rougher sea, Fled are those times, when, in harmonious strains, The rustic poet praised his native plains: No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse, 10 Their country's beauty or their nymphs' rehearse; Yet still for these we frame the tender strain, Still in our lays fond Corydons complain, And shepherds' boys their amorous pains reveal, The only pains, alas! they never feel. The poor laborious natives of the place, And see the mid-day sun. with fervid ray, On their bare heads and dewy temples play; 45 While some, with feebler heads and fainter hearts, Deplore their fortune, yet sustain their parts: Then shall I dare these real ills to hide On Mincio's banks, in Cæsar's boun- 50 Which neither groves nor happy valleys teous reign, If Tityrus found the Golden Age again, Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong, Mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song? From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, 20 Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way? Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains, Because the Muses never knew their pains: They boast their peasants' pipes; but peasants now Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough; 25 And few, amid the rural-tribe, have time To number syllables, and play with rhyme; Save honest Duck, what son of verse could share The poet's rapture, and the peasant's care? Or the great labors of the field degrade, 30 With the new peril of a poorer trade? From this chief cause these idle praises spring, That themes so easy few forbear to sing; For no deep thought the trifling subjects boast, There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, 70 And to the ragged infant threaten war; There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil; There the blue bugloss1 paints the sterile soil; Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf, The slimy mallow1 waves her silky leaf; 1 A kind of plant. |