ADDRESS TO THE ORANGE-TREE Called the Great Bourbon, which is above four hundred years old. WHEN France with civil wars was torn, And heads, as well as crowns were shorn One Bourbon, in unalter'd plight, Hath still maintain'd its regal right, And held its court-a goodly sight To all beholders. Thou, leafy monarch, thou alone, Hast sat uninjured on thy throne, Seeing the war range; And when the great Nassaus were sent Crownless away, (a sad event!) Thou didst uphold and represent The House of Orange. To tell what changes thou hast seen, Each grand monarque, and king and queen, Of French extraction, Might puzzle those who don't conceive French history, so I believe Comparing thee with ours will give More satisfaction. Westminster Hall*, whose oaken roof The papers say, (but that's no proof,) Existed but in stones and trees, When thou wert waving in the breeze, And blossoms, (what a treat for bees!) Chaucer, so old a bard that time Has antiquated every chime, VOL. I. *Rebuilt 1399. C And from his tomb outworn each rhyme Within the Abbey; And Gower, an older poet whom The Borough Church enshrines (his tomb, Though once restored, has lost its bloom, Lived in thy time-the first perchance Was beating monks* when thou in France By monks wert beaten, Who shook beneath this very tree Their reverend beards, with glutton glee, As each down-falling luxury Was caught and eaten. Perchance when Henry gain'd the fight Of Agincourt, some Gaulish knight, (His bleeding steed in woful plight, * There is a tradition (though not authenticated) that Chaucer was fined for beating a monk in Fleet-street. With smoking haunches,) Laid down his helmet at thy root, And, as he pluck'd the grateful fruit, Suffered his poor exhausted brute To crop thy branches. Thou wert of portly size and look, When first the Turks besieged and took Constantinople; And eagles in thy boughs might perch, When, leaving Bullen in the lurch, Another Henry changed his church, And used the Pope ill. What numerous namesakes hast thou seen Lounging beneath thy shady green, With monks as lazy; Louis Quatorze has pressed that ground, With his six mistresses around A sample of the old and sound Legitimacy. And when despotic freaks and vices Brought on th' inevitable crisis Of revolution, Thou heard'st the mob's infuriate shriek, Who came their victim Queen to seek, On guiltless heads the wrath to wreak Oh! of what follies, vice, and crime, Hast thou, in thine eventful time, Been made beholder! What wars, what feuds-the thoughts appal! Each against each, and all with all, Till races upon races fall, In earth to moulder. Whilst thou, serene, unalter'd, calm, (Such are the constant gifts and balm Bestow'd by Nature!) |