Ode+to+a+Mountain+Oak

By George Henry Boker
 * Ode to a Mountain Oak **

Proud mountain giant, whose majestic face, From thy high watch-tower on the steadfast rock, Looks calmly o’er the trees that throng thy base, How long hast thou withstood the tempest’s shock? How long hast thou looked down on yonder vale Sleeping in sun before thee; Or bent thy ruffled brow, to let the gale Steer its white, drifting sails just o’er thee?

Strong link ‘twixt vanished ages! Thou hast a sage and reverend look; As if life’s struggle, through its varied stages, Were stamped on thee, as in a book. Thou hast no voice to tell what thou hast seen, Save a low moaning in thy troubled leaves; And canst but point thy scars, and shake thy head, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">With solemn warning, in the sunbeam’s sheen; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And show how Time the mightiest thing bereaves, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">By the sere leaves that rot upon thy bed.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Type of long-suffering power! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Even in my gayest hour, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Thou’dst still my tongue, and send my spirit far, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">To wander in a labyrinth of thought; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">For thou hast waged with Time unceasing war, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And out of pain hast strength and beauty brought. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Thou amidst storms and tempests hadst thy birth, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Upon these bleak and scantly-sheltering rocks, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Nor much save storm and wrath hast known on earth; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Yet nobly hast thou bode the fiercest shocks <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">That Circumstance can pour on patient Worth.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">I see thee springing, in the vernal time, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">A sapling weak, from out the barren stone, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">To dance with May upon the mountain peak; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Pale leaves put forth to greet the genial clime, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And roots shot down life’s sustenance to seek, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">While mere existence was a joy alone— <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">O thou wert happy then! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">On Summer’s heat thy tinkling leaflets fed, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Each fibre toughened, and a little crown <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Of green upon thy modest brow was spread, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">To catch the rain, and shake it gently down. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">But then came Autumn, when <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Thy dry and tattered leaves fell dead; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And sadly on the gale <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Thou drop’dst them one by one— <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Drop’dst them, with a low, sad wail, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">On the cold, unfeeling stone. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Next Winter seized thee in his iron grasp, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And shook thy bruised and straining form; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Or locked thee in his icicle’s cold clasp, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And piled upon thy head the shorn cloud’s snowy fleece. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Wert thou not joyful, in this bitter storm, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">That the green honors, which erst decked thy head, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Sage Autumn’s slow decay, had mildly shed? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Else, with their weight, they’d given thy ills increase, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And dragged thee helpless from thy uptorn bed.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Year after year, in kind or adverse fate, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Thy branches stretched, and thy young twigs put forth, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Nor changed thy nature with the season’s date: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Whether thou wrestled’st with the gusty north, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Or beat the driving rain to glittering froth, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Or shook the snow-storm from thy arms of might, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Or drank the balmy dews on summer’s night;-- <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Laughing in sunshine, writhing in the storm, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Yet wert thou still the same! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Summer spread forth thy towering form, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And Winter strengthened thy great frame. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Achieving thy destiny <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">On went’st thou sturdily, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Shaking thy green flags in triumph and jubille!

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">From thy secure and sheltering branch <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">The wild bird pours her glad and fearless lay, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">That, with the sunbeams, falls upon the vale, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Adding fresh brightness to the smile of the day. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">‘Neath those broad boughs the youth has told love’s tale; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And thou hast seen his hardy features blanch, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Heard his snared heart beat like a prisoned bird, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Fluttering with fear, before the fowler laid; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">While his bold figure shook at every word— <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">The strong man trembling at a timid maid! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And thou hast smiled upon their children’s play; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Seen they grow old, and gray, and pass away.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Heard the low prattle of the thoughtless child, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Age’s cold wisdom, and the lesson’s mild <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Which patient mothers to their offspring say;-- <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Yet art thou still the same! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Man may decay; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Race after race may pass away; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">The great may perish, and their very fame <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Rot day by day— <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Rot noteless with their once inspired clay: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Still, as at their birth, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Thou stretchest thy long arms above the earth— <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Type of unbending Will! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Type of majestic, self-sustaining Power! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Elate in sunshine, firm when tempests lower, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">May thy calm strength my wavering spirit fill! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">O let me learn from thee, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Thou proud and steadfast tree, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">To bear unmurmuring what stern Time may send; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Nor ‘neath life’s ruthless tempests bend: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">But calmly stand like thee, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Though wrath and storm shake me, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Though vernal hopes in yellow Autumn end, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">And, strong in Truth, work out my destiny. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Type of long-suffering Power! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Type of unbending Will! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Strong in the tempest’s hour, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Bright when the storm is still; <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Rising from every contest with an unbroken heart, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Strengthened by every struggle, emblem of might thou art! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Sign of what man can compass, spite of an adverse state, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Still, from thy rocky summit, teach us to war with Fate!

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