Part III

The deed is done: the Tree is lowThat stood so long and firm;The Woodman and his axe are gone,His toil has found its term;And where he wrought the speckled ThrushSecurely hunts the worm.

The Cony from the sandy bankHas run a rapid race,Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern,To seek the open space;And on its haunches sits erectTo clean its furry face.

The dappled Fawn is close at hand,The Hind is browsing near,--And on the Larch's lowest boughThe Ousel whistles clear;But checks the noteWithin its throat,As choked with sudden fear!

With sudden fear her wormy questThe Thrush abruptly quits--Through thistle, bent, and tangled fernThe startled Cony flits;And on the Larch's lowest boughNo more the Ousel sits.

With sudden fearThe dappled DeerEffect a swift escape;But well might bolder creatures start,And fly, or stand agape,With rising hair, and curdled blood,To see so grim a Shape!

The very sky turns pale above;The earth grows dark beneath;The human Terror thrills with coldAnd draws a shorter breath--An universal panic ownsThe dread approach of DEATH!

With silent pace, as shadows come,And dark as shadows be,The grisly Phantom takes his standBeside the fallen Tree,And scans it with his gloomy eyes,And laughs with horrid glee--

A dreary laugh and desolate,Where mirth is void and null,As hollow as its echo soundsWithin the hollow skull--"Whoever laid this tree along,His hatchet was not dull!

"The human arm and human toolHave done their duty well!But after sound of ringing axeMust sound the ringing knell;When Elm or OakHave felt the stroke,My turn it is to fell!

"No passive unregarded tree,A senseless thing of wood,Wherein the sluggish sap ascendsTo swell the vernal bud--But conscious, moving, breathing trunksThat throb with living blood!

"No forest Monarch yearly cladIn mantle green or brown;That unrecorded lives, and fallsBy hand of rustic clown--But Kings who don the purple robe,And wear the jewell'd crown.

"Ah! little recks the Royal mind,Within his Banquet Hall,While tapers shine and Music breathesAnd Beauty leads the Ball,--He little recks the oaken plankShall be his palace wall!

"Ah, little dreams the haughty Peer,The while his Falcon flies--Or on the blood-bedabbled turfThe antler'd quarry dies--That in his own ancestral ParkThe narrow dwelling lies!

"But haughty Peer and mighty KingOne doom shall overwhelm!The oaken cellShall lodge him wellWhose sceptre ruled a realm--While he, who never knew a home,Shall find it in the Elm!

"The tatter'd, lean, dejected wretch,Who begs from door to door,And dies within the cressy ditch,Or on the barren moor,The friendly Elm shall lodge and clotheThat houseless man and poor!

"Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk,That lies so long and prone,With many a fallen acorn-cup,And mast, and furry cone--This rugged trunk shall hold its shareOf mortal flesh and bone!

"A Miser hoarding heaps of gold,But pale with ague-fears--A Wife lamenting love's decay,With secret cruel tears,Distilling bitter, bitter dropsFrom sweets of former years--

"A Man within whose gloomy mindOffence had deeply sunk,Who out of fierce Revenge's cupHath madly, darkly drunk--Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleepWithin this very trunk!

"This massy trunk that lies along,And many more must fall--For the very knaveWho digs the grave,The man who spreads the pall,And he who tolls the funeral bell,The Elm shall have them all!

"The tall abounding Elm that growsIn hedgerows up and down;In field and forest, copse and park,And in the peopled town,With colonies of noisy rooksThat nestle on its crown.

"And well th' abounding Elm may growIn field and hedge so rife,In forest, copse, and wooded park,And 'mid the city's strife,For, every hour that passes byShall end a human life!"

The Phantom ends: the shade is gone;The sky is clear and bright;On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree,There glows a ruddy light;And bounding through the golden fernThe Rabbit comes to bite.

The Thrush's mate beside her sitsAnd pipes a merry lay;The Dove is in the evergreen;And on the Larch's sprayThe Fly-bird flutters up and down,To catch its tiny prey.

The gentle Hind and dappled FawnAre coming up the glade;Each harmless furr'd and feather'd thingIs glad, and not afraid--But on my sadden'd spirit stillThe Shadow leaves a shade.

A secret, vague, prophetic gloom,As though by certain markI knew the fore-appointed Tree,Within whose rugged barkThis warm and living frame shall findIts narrow house and dark.

That mystic Tree which breathed to meA sad and solemn sound,That sometimes murmur'd overhead,And sometimes underground;Within that shady AvenueWhere lofty Elms abound.