Poems (Hoffman)/Lament of the Fallen Oak
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LAMENT OF THE FALLEN OAK
"Alas, and is it true that I no more
Shall stand in pride and beauty as of yore,
Strength for my throne and grandeur for my crown,
Might for my scepter? Who has thrown me down?
Who dared to smite the monarch of the wood?
I, who for many centuries withstood
The storm-king's anger and the wind-fiend's wrath
Dethroning many others in their path,
Stripping the leafy forests, thundering
Down the wild canyons, ever muttering
In baffled rage as firm beneath their frown
I stood, defying aught to tear me down.
The forest fires lit up the woods with flame
I knew not where they went or whence they came,
The crackling underbrush, the blazing grass,
Smoldered to ashes, and I saw them pass;
Flame after flame in madness leaping high
Lighting the woods, the mountains and the sky;
Yet stood I like some armored, dauntless knight
Unscathed, unshrinking in the thickest fight;
Even the long, grey, lightly flowing moss
On limb and twig still free in sport to toss
To every breeze that hummed its lullaby
Through the high branches of the old oak tree.
The sound of the wood-chopper as at morn
Waked the still echoes and as downward borne
To the same soil from which they one day sprang
The trees returned, the dim old forest rang.
Crash! And the highest were forever low;
Then fell the chopper's axe, blow after blow
Resounding through the forest 'till at last
Nothing was left to whisper of their past
But the low stumps decaying in the ground
And the dry brush of branches strewn around;
Yet towering still above their sudden fall
I stood unshaken, monarch over all;
But now, alas, why vanished triumphs tell?
On me at last the lot of nature fell,
No storm of terror shook my bulwarks down
No war of elements laid low my crown,
No burning fiery furnace scathed my bark,
No lightning arrow chose me for its mark,
No feeble instrument in feebler hand
Forbade my leafy throne to longer stand;
But fell the gentle rain from clouds above
On field and forest, mountain, plain and grove
'Till countless springs stray rivulets supplied
And swelled the torrent to a rushing tide
'Till every hill-slope shone with silver threads,
With tiny pebbles in their shallow beds,
With sap refreshed and leaves of brighter green
I gazed in gladness on the freshened scene;
But every leaf was weighed with rain-drops down
And heavier grew my lofty, leafy crown.
The mistletoe adorning every bough
Seemed like a mighty weight of metal now,
And still the rain-drops fell though every hill
Seemed gushing forth in gurgling spring and rill;
And still the clouds poured down their crystal flood
Swelling each purling stream and bursting bud;
When a slight tremor through my being ran,
A shiver midst my highest twigs began,
A loosening midst the roots embedded deep
In the firm earth, where centuries saw them creep
'Till grown to giant strength and giant size
They bade the sapling high and higher rise;
Upheaving earth, uptearing rocks around—
Hush! Through the silent glades a thundering sound,
A crash of splintering boughs, an awful thud—
And then oppressive silence in the wood.
Alas, my fall! The little birds no more
Shall sing among my branches as of yore,
Their last year's nests have shared my sudden doom
No more in early Springtime will they come
With twitters of artless ecstasy
To build their dwellings in the old oak tree;
No more with tiny wings raised timidly
From twig to twig the baby-birds shall fly
And try their first weak songs beneath the leaves
That to their cozy homes were roof and eaves.
Ye pigeons, that with fluttering pinions stayed
To gather acorns in the deepest shade,
Ye red-winged blackbirds that year after year
In earliest Spring were wont to gather here
Holding the season's first grand jubilee
Among the branches of the old oak tree,
Why more upon your vanished music dwell
Since all is past? My feathered friends—farewell.
Ye frisking squirrels that to your burrows bore
My plenteous acorns for your Winter store,
Ye lambs that nibbled the young grass below
And frolicked where the wild-flowers loved to blow,
Green grow the fields and blue the Summer sky
But as for me—a last and long—goodbye.
Ye cheerful wind-flowers that with dewy breath
Freighted the sunshine and shade beneath,
Fair, frail nemophilas in freshness grown
By Nature's hand in rich profusion sown
With wide blue eyes in loveliness upraised
That oft through dew-drop tears so sweetly gazed
Or clear as bluest depths of Summer sky
Looked up to those blue heavens lovingly,
And dainty cream-cups mingling with the blue,
Bright, tender wild-flowers evermore—adieu.
And thou, encircling stream, that at my foot
Didst fall in cascades over rock and root
Where fairy fern-fronds like Narcissus vain
Their graceful forms saw mirrored back again
In glassy pools below the cascade's fall
And waved to every zephyr's breezy call,
I saw thee every year farther below,
Thou saw'st my rise, my reign, my overthrow;
Again the wild deer shall the grasses press
That carpet all around with loveliness,
Again the hunter rest upon the brink
Of the cool stream and from its waters drink;
But nevermore shall my inviting shade
Shield the fierce heat of Summer from the glade:
Trailing in dust are all my hoary plumes
While every sunny hour my life consumes,
And long grey moss and broken mistletoe
Lie strewn around like cerements of woe.
I envy now the tules by yonder lake
That bend to every gale but do not break,
The tallest, half way sunk in waters deep,
Their feeble roots through mire and driftings creep;
Yet I, with giant roots through rock-beds wound
Or firmly fastened in the solid ground,
I, who once called them weak, and small and low,
Fain would be growing as I see them grow.
But why my common heritage deplore?
The bravest warrior finds his triumphs o'er,
The mightiest king laments the fatal hour
When ruined lies the scepter of his power;
And I have lived while empires rose and fell
And kings lived out their little day as well;
Yet I who stood for centuries the same,
Chanting the triumph song of power and fame,
Now lie with all my vaunted vigor spent
The vanity of pride my last lament!"
Shall stand in pride and beauty as of yore,
Strength for my throne and grandeur for my crown,
Might for my scepter? Who has thrown me down?
Who dared to smite the monarch of the wood?
I, who for many centuries withstood
The storm-king's anger and the wind-fiend's wrath
Dethroning many others in their path,
Stripping the leafy forests, thundering
Down the wild canyons, ever muttering
In baffled rage as firm beneath their frown
I stood, defying aught to tear me down.
The forest fires lit up the woods with flame
I knew not where they went or whence they came,
The crackling underbrush, the blazing grass,
Smoldered to ashes, and I saw them pass;
Flame after flame in madness leaping high
Lighting the woods, the mountains and the sky;
Yet stood I like some armored, dauntless knight
Unscathed, unshrinking in the thickest fight;
Even the long, grey, lightly flowing moss
On limb and twig still free in sport to toss
To every breeze that hummed its lullaby
Through the high branches of the old oak tree.
The sound of the wood-chopper as at morn
Waked the still echoes and as downward borne
To the same soil from which they one day sprang
The trees returned, the dim old forest rang.
Crash! And the highest were forever low;
Then fell the chopper's axe, blow after blow
Resounding through the forest 'till at last
Nothing was left to whisper of their past
But the low stumps decaying in the ground
And the dry brush of branches strewn around;
Yet towering still above their sudden fall
I stood unshaken, monarch over all;
But now, alas, why vanished triumphs tell?
On me at last the lot of nature fell,
No storm of terror shook my bulwarks down
No war of elements laid low my crown,
No burning fiery furnace scathed my bark,
No lightning arrow chose me for its mark,
No feeble instrument in feebler hand
Forbade my leafy throne to longer stand;
But fell the gentle rain from clouds above
On field and forest, mountain, plain and grove
'Till countless springs stray rivulets supplied
And swelled the torrent to a rushing tide
'Till every hill-slope shone with silver threads,
With tiny pebbles in their shallow beds,
With sap refreshed and leaves of brighter green
I gazed in gladness on the freshened scene;
But every leaf was weighed with rain-drops down
And heavier grew my lofty, leafy crown.
The mistletoe adorning every bough
Seemed like a mighty weight of metal now,
And still the rain-drops fell though every hill
Seemed gushing forth in gurgling spring and rill;
And still the clouds poured down their crystal flood
Swelling each purling stream and bursting bud;
When a slight tremor through my being ran,
A shiver midst my highest twigs began,
A loosening midst the roots embedded deep
In the firm earth, where centuries saw them creep
'Till grown to giant strength and giant size
They bade the sapling high and higher rise;
Upheaving earth, uptearing rocks around—
Hush! Through the silent glades a thundering sound,
A crash of splintering boughs, an awful thud—
And then oppressive silence in the wood.
Alas, my fall! The little birds no more
Shall sing among my branches as of yore,
Their last year's nests have shared my sudden doom
No more in early Springtime will they come
With twitters of artless ecstasy
To build their dwellings in the old oak tree;
No more with tiny wings raised timidly
From twig to twig the baby-birds shall fly
And try their first weak songs beneath the leaves
That to their cozy homes were roof and eaves.
Ye pigeons, that with fluttering pinions stayed
To gather acorns in the deepest shade,
Ye red-winged blackbirds that year after year
In earliest Spring were wont to gather here
Holding the season's first grand jubilee
Among the branches of the old oak tree,
Why more upon your vanished music dwell
Since all is past? My feathered friends—farewell.
Ye frisking squirrels that to your burrows bore
My plenteous acorns for your Winter store,
Ye lambs that nibbled the young grass below
And frolicked where the wild-flowers loved to blow,
Green grow the fields and blue the Summer sky
But as for me—a last and long—goodbye.
Ye cheerful wind-flowers that with dewy breath
Freighted the sunshine and shade beneath,
Fair, frail nemophilas in freshness grown
By Nature's hand in rich profusion sown
With wide blue eyes in loveliness upraised
That oft through dew-drop tears so sweetly gazed
Or clear as bluest depths of Summer sky
Looked up to those blue heavens lovingly,
And dainty cream-cups mingling with the blue,
Bright, tender wild-flowers evermore—adieu.
And thou, encircling stream, that at my foot
Didst fall in cascades over rock and root
Where fairy fern-fronds like Narcissus vain
Their graceful forms saw mirrored back again
In glassy pools below the cascade's fall
And waved to every zephyr's breezy call,
I saw thee every year farther below,
Thou saw'st my rise, my reign, my overthrow;
Again the wild deer shall the grasses press
That carpet all around with loveliness,
Again the hunter rest upon the brink
Of the cool stream and from its waters drink;
But nevermore shall my inviting shade
Shield the fierce heat of Summer from the glade:
Trailing in dust are all my hoary plumes
While every sunny hour my life consumes,
And long grey moss and broken mistletoe
Lie strewn around like cerements of woe.
I envy now the tules by yonder lake
That bend to every gale but do not break,
The tallest, half way sunk in waters deep,
Their feeble roots through mire and driftings creep;
Yet I, with giant roots through rock-beds wound
Or firmly fastened in the solid ground,
I, who once called them weak, and small and low,
Fain would be growing as I see them grow.
But why my common heritage deplore?
The bravest warrior finds his triumphs o'er,
The mightiest king laments the fatal hour
When ruined lies the scepter of his power;
And I have lived while empires rose and fell
And kings lived out their little day as well;
Yet I who stood for centuries the same,
Chanting the triumph song of power and fame,
Now lie with all my vaunted vigor spent
The vanity of pride my last lament!"