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Who liv'd, when thou wast such? Oh, couldst thou speak,

As in Dodona once thy kindred trees

Oracular, I would not curious ask

The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth
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 mistated setting right-
Desp❜rate 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 graz'd it, stood beneath that ample cope Uncrouded, yet safe-shelter'd from the storm. No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast out-liv'd Thy popularity, and art become

(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 cen'try roll'd
Slow after century, a giant-bulk

Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root
Upheav'd above the soil, and sides imboss'd
With prominent wens globose-till at the last,
The rottenness, which time is charg'd to'inflict
On other mighty ones, found also thec.

What exhibitions various hath the world

Witness'd of mutability in all,

That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet, on which all subsist,
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them. Skies uncertain, now the heat
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,

And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads, Fine, passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works, Delight in agitation, yet sustain

The force, that agitates, not unimpair'd,

But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause

Of their best tone their dissolution owe.

Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still
The great and little of thy lot, thy growth
From almost nullity into a state

Of matchless' grandeur, and declension thence,
Slow, into such magnificent decay.

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
Of some flagg'd admiral, and tortuous arms,
The ship-wright's darling treasure, didst present
To the four quarter'd winds, robust aud bold,
Warp'd into tough *knee-timber, many a load!
But the axe spar'd thee. In those thriftier days
Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply
The bottomless demands of contest, wag'd
For senatorial honours. Thus to Time
The task was left to whittle thee away

With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge,]

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.

Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more,
Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserv'd,
Achiev'd a labour, 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 rivu❜lets to thy root; Thou temptest none, but rather much forbidd'st The feller's toil, which thou could'st ill requite. Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock, A quarry of stout spurs, and knotted fangs, Which, crook'd into a thousand whimsies, clasp The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect.

So stands a kingdom, whose foundation yet Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, Tho' all the superstructure, by the tooth Pulveriz'd of venality, a shell

Stands now and semblance only of itself!

Thine arms have left thee. Winds have torn

them off

Long since, and rovers of the forest wild,

With bow and shaft, have burnt them. Some have left
A splinter'd stump, bleach'd to a snowy white;
And some, memorial none where once they grew.
Yet still life lingers in thee, and puts forth

Proof not contemptible of what she can,
Even where death predominates. The spring
Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force,
Than yonder upstarts of the neighb'ring wood,
So much thy juniors, who their birth receiv'd
Half a millennium since the date of thine.

But since, although well qualify'd by age
To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice
May be expected from thee, seated here
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, Drew not his life from woman; never gaz'd, With mute unconsciousness of what he saw, On all around him; learn'd not by degrees,

Nor ow'd articulation to his ear;

But, moulded by his Maker into man

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