| |
| LIKE a huge Python, winding round and round | |
| The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars, | |
| Up to its very summit near the stars, | |
| A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound | |
| No other tree could live. But gallantly | 5 |
| The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung | |
| In crimson clusters all the boughs among, | |
| Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee; | |
| And oft at nights the garden overflows | |
| With one sweet song that seems to have no close, | 10 |
| Sung darkling from our tree, while men repose. | |
| |
| When first my casement is wide open thrown | |
| At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest; | |
| Sometimes, and most in winter,—on its crest | |
| A gray baboon sits statue-like alone | 15 |
| Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs | |
| His puny offspring leap about and play; | |
| And far and near kokilas hail the day; | |
| And to their pastures wend our sleepy cows; | |
| And in the shadow, on the broad tank cast | 20 |
| By that hoar tree, so beautiful and vast, | |
| The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed. | |
| |
| But not because of its magnificence | |
| Dear is the Casuarina to my soul: | |
| Beneath it we have played; though years may roll, | 25 |
| O sweet companions, loved with love intense, | |
| For your sakes, shall the tree be ever dear. | |
| Blent with your images, it shall arise | |
| In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes! | |
| What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear | 30 |
| Like the sea breaking on a shingle-beach? | |
| It is the tree’s lament, an eerie speech, | |
| That haply to the unknown land may reach. | |
| |
| Unknown, yet well-known to the eye of faith! | |
| Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away | 35 |
| In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay, | |
| When slumbered in his cave the water-wraith | |
| And the waves gently kissed the classic shore | |
| Of France or Italy, beneath the moon, | |
| When earth lay trancèd in a dreamless swoon: | 40 |
| And every time the music rose,—before | |
| Mine inner vision rose a form sublime, | |
| Thy form, O Tree, as in my happy prime | |
| I saw thee, in my own loved native clime. | |
| |
| Therefore I fain would consecrate a lay | 45 |
| Unto thy honor, Tree, beloved of those | |
| Who now in blessed sleep for aye repose,— | |
| Dearer than life to me, alas, were they! | |
| Mayst thou be numbered when my days are done | |
| With deathless trees—like those in Borrowdale, | 50 |
| Under whose awful branches lingered pale | |
| “Fear, trembling Hope, and Death, the skeleton, | |
| And Time the shadow;” and though weak the verse | |
| That would thy beauty fain, oh, fain rehearse, | |
| May Love defend thee from Oblivion’s curse. | 55 |
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