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 ribbed the sides and planked the deck

Of some flagged admiral; and tortuous arms, The shipwright's darling treasure, didst pre

sent

To the four-quartered winds, robust and bold,
Warped into tough knee-timber, many a load!
But the axe spared thee. In those thriftier
days

Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply
The bottomless demands of contest, waged
For senatorial honors. Thus to Time
The task was left to whittle thee away
With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge,
Noiseless, an atom and an atom more,
Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserved,
Achieved a labor, which had, far and wide,
By man performed, made all the forest ring.
Embowelled now, and of thy ancient self
Possessing naught but the scooped rind, that

seems

A huge throat calling to the clouds for drink,
Which it would give in rivulets to thy root,
Thou temptest none, but rather much for-
bidd'st

The feller's toil, which thou couldst ill requite.
Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock,
A quarry of stout spurs, and knotted fangs,
Which, crooked 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,
Though all the superstructure, by the tooth
Pulverized of venality, a shell

Stands now, and semblance only of itself! Thine arms have left thee. Winds have rent them off

Long since, and rovers of the forest wild With bow and shaft have burnt them. Some have left

A splintered stump bleached to a snowy white; And some memorial none where once they

grew.

Yet life still 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 neighboring wood,

So much thy juniors, who their birth received 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 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 gazed,
With mute unconsciousness of what he saw,
On all around him; learned not by degrees,
Nor owed articulation to his ear;
But, moulded by his Maker into man
At once, upstood intelligent, surveyed
All creatures, with precision understood
Their purport, uses, properties, assigned
To each his name significant, and, filled
With love and wisdom, rendered back to
Heaven