THE ELM TREE:

A DREAM IN THE WOODS.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees.

AS YOU LIKE IT

TWAS in a shady Avenue,
Where lofty Elms abound-
And from a Tree

There came to me

A sad and solemn sound,

That sometimes murmur'd overhead, And sometimes underground.

Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh,
Amid the boughs to moan;

It mutter'd in the stem and then
The roots took up the tone;
As if beneath the dewy grass
The Dead began to groan.

No breeze there was to stir the leaves;
No bolts that tempests launch,
To rend the trunk or rugged bark;
No gale to bend the branch;

No quake of earth to heave the roots,
That stood so stiff and staunch.

No bird was preening up aloft,
To rustle with its wing;
No squirrel, in its sport or fear,

From bough to bough to spring;
The solid bole

Had ne'er a hole

To hide a living thing!

No scooping hollow cell to lodge
A furtive beast or fowl,

The martin, bat,

Or forest cat

That nightly loves to prowl,
Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud
The moping, snoring owl.

But still the sound was in my ear,
A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground-
'Twas in a shady Avenue

Where lofty Elms abound.

O hath the Dryad still a tongue
In this ungenial clime?
Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice
As in the classic prime—
To make the forest voluble,
As in the olden time?

The olden time is dead and gone;
Its years have fill'd their sum—
And e'en in Greece-her native Greece-
The Sylvan Nymph is dumb-
From ash, and beech, and aged oak,
No classic whispers come.

From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch,
And fragrant Linden Trees;

No living sound

E'er hovers round,

Unless the vagrant breeze,

The music of the merry bird,
Or hum of busy bees.

But busy bees forsake the Elm

That bears no bloom aloft

The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush,

The Blackbird in the croft;

And among the firs the brooding Dove,
That else might murmur soft.

Yet still I heard that solemn sound,
And sad it was to boot,
From ev'ry overhanging bough,

And each minuter shoot;

From the rugged trunk and mossy rind, And from the twisted root.

From these, a melancholy moan;
From those, a dreary sigh;
As if the boughs were wintry bare,
And wild winds sweeping by-
Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud
Was steadfast in the sky.

No sign or touch of stirring air
Could either sense observe-
The zephyr had not breath enough
The thistle-down to swerve,
Or force the filmy gossamers
To take another curve.

In still and silent slumber hush'd
All Nature seem'd to be;
From heaven above, or earth beneath,
No whisper came to me-
Except the solemn sound and sad

From that MYSTERIOUS TREE!

A hollow, hollow, hollow sound,

As is that dreamy roar

When distant billows boil and bouna
Along a shingly shore-

But the ocean brim was far aloof,
A hundred miles or more.

No murmur of the gusty sea,
No tumult of the beach,

However they might foam and fret,

The bounded sense could reachMethought the trees in mystic tongue Were talking each to each!

Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales
Of greenwood love or guilt,
Of whisper'd vows

Beneath their boughs;

Or blood obscurely spilt;

Or of that near-hand Mansion House A Royal Tudor built.

Perchance, of booty won or shared
Beneath the starry cope—
Or where the suicidal wretch
Hung up the fatal rope;
Or Beauty kept an evil tryste,
Insnared by Love and Hope.

Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop'd
At midnight dark and dank-
And what is underneath the sod
Whereon the grass is rank-
Of old intrigues,

And privy leagues,

Tradition leaves in blank.

Of traitor lips that mutter'd plots

Of Kin who fought and fell

God knows the undiscovered schemes, The arts and acts of Hell,

Perform'd long generations since,
If trees had tongues to tell!

With wary eyes, and ears alert,
As one who walks afraid,
I wander'd down the dappled path
Of mingled light and shade-

How sweetly gleamed that arch of blue
Beyond the green arcade!

How clearly shone the glimpse of Heav'n Beyond that verdant aisle !

All overarch'd with lofty elms,

That quench'd the light the while,
As dim and chill

As serves to fill

Some old Cathedral pile!

And many a gnarlèd trunk was there,
That ages long had stood,

Till Time had wrought them into shapes
Like Pan's fantastic brood;

Or still more foul and hideous forms
That Pagans carve in wood!

A crouching Satyr lurking here-
And there a Goblin grim—
As staring full of demon life

As Gothic sculptor's whim-
A marvel it had scarcely been
To hear a voice from him!