Yardley Oak.[1]

By William Cowper

Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all That once lived here, thy brethren, at my birth (Since which I number threescore winters past), A shatterd veteran, hollow-trunkd perhaps, As now, and with excoriate forks deform, Relics of ages! could a mind, imbued With truth from heaven, created thing adore, I might with reverence kneel, and worship thee. It seems idolatry with some excuse, When our forefather druids in their oaks Imagined sanctity. The conscience, yet Unpurified by an authentic act Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine, Loved not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste Of fruit proscribed, as to a refuge, fled. Thou wast a bauble once, a cup and ball Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, Seeking her food, with ease might have purloind The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp. But fate thy growth decreed; autumnal rains Beneath thy parent tree mellowd the soil Designd thy cradle; and a skipping deer, With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepared The soft receptacle, in which, secure, Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through. So fancy dreams. Disprove it, if you can, Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search Of argument, employd too oft amiss, Sifts half the pleasures of short life away! Thou fellst mature; and, in the loamy clod Swelling with vegetative force instinct, Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled twins, Now stars; two lobes, protruding, paird exact; A leaf succeeded, and another leaf, And, all the elements thy puny growth Fostering propitious, thou becamest a twig. Who lived when thou wast such? Oh, couldst thou speak, As in Dodona once thy kindred trees Oracular, I would not curious ask The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past. By thee I might correct, erroneous oft, The clock of history, facts and events Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts Recovering, and misstated setting right Desperate attempt, till trees shall speak again! Time made thee what thou wast, king of the woods; And time hath made thee what thou arta cave For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs Oerhung the champaign; and the numerous flocks That grazed it stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe shelterd from the storm. No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outlived Thy popularity, and art become (Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth. While thus through all the stages thou hast pushd Of treeshipfirst a seedling, hid in grass; Then twig; then sapling; and, as century rolld Slow after century, a giant bulk Of girth enormous, with moss-cushiond root Upheaved above the soil, and sides embossd With prominent wens globosetill at the last The rottenness, which time is charged to inflict On other mighty ones, found also thee. What exhibitions various hath the world Witnessd of mutability in all That we account most durable below? Change is the diet on which all subsist, Created changeable, and change at last, Destroys them. Skies uncertain now the heat Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds Calm and alternate storm, moisture, and drought, Invigorate by turns the springs of life In all that live, plant, animal, and man, And in conclusion mar them. Natures threads, Fine passing thought, een in their coarsest works, Delight in agitation, yet sustain The force that agitates not unimpaird; But worn by frequent impulse, to the cause Of their best tone their dissolution owe. Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still The great and little of thy lot, thy growth From almost nullity into a state Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence, Slow, into such magnificent decay. Time was when, settling on thy leaf, a fly Could shake thee to the rootand time has been When tempests could not. At thy firmest age Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents That might have ribbd the sides and plankd the deck Of some flaggd admiral; and tortuous arms, The shipwrights darling treasure, didst present To the four-quarterd winds, robust and bold, Warpd into tough knee-timber, many a load![2] 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 honours. 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 labour which had, far and wide, By man performd, made all the forest ring. Embowelld now, and of thy ancient self Possessing nought but the scoopd 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 forbiddst The fellers toil, which thou couldst ill requite. Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock, A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs, Which, crookd 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 splinterd stump bleachd 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 neighbouring 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; learnd not by degrees, Nor owed articulation to his ear; But, moulded by his Maker into man At once, upstood intelligent, surveyd All creatures, with precision understood Their purport, uses, properties, assignd To each his name significant, and, filld With love and wisdom, renderd back to Heaven In praise harmonious the first air he drew. He was excused the penalties of dull Minority. No tutor charged his hand With the thought-tracing quill, or taskd his mind With problems. History, not wanted yet, Leand on her elbow, watching time, whose course, Eventful, should supply her with a theme.