Page:The Forest Sanctuary.pdf/14

This shall not be thy lot, my blessed child!
I have not sorrow'd, struggled, liv'd in vain—
Hear me! magnificent and ancient wild;
And mighty rivers, ye that meet the main,
As deep meets deep; and forests, whose dim shade
The flood's voice, and the wind's, by swells pervade;
Hear me!—'tis well to die, and not complain,
Yet there are hours when the charg'd heart must speak,

I see an oak before me^3[1], it hath been
The crown'd one of the woods; and might have flung
Its hundred arms to Heaven, still freshly green,
But a wild vine around the stem hath clung,
From branch to branch close wreaths of bondage throwing,
Till the proud tree, before no tempest bowing,
Hath shrunk and died, those serpent-folds among.
Alas! alas!—what is it that I see?