Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1830.pdf/15

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Literary Gazette, 21st August, 1830, Page 548

THE ASPEN TREE.

The quiet of the evening hour
    Was laid on every summer leaf;
That purple shade was on each flower,
    At once so beautiful, so brief,

Only the aspen knew not rest,
    But still, with an unquiet song,
Kept murmuring to the gentle west,
    And cast a changeful shade along.

Not for its beauty—other trees
    Had greener boughs, and statelier stem;
And those had fruit, and blossoms these,
    Yet still I chose this tree from them.

'Tis a strange thing, this depth of love
    Which dwells within the human heart;
From earth below to heaven above,
    In each, in all, it fain has part.

It must find sympathy, or make;
    And hence beliefs, the fond, the vain,
The thousand shapes that fancies take,
    To bind the fine connecting chain.