THE ELM TREE: A DREAM IN THE WOODS. "And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees." "TWAS in a shady Avenue, AS YOU LIKE IT. Where lofty Elms abound And from a Tree There came to me A sad and solemn sound, That sometimes murmur'd overhead, Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh, It mutter'd in the stem, and then No breeze there was to stir the leaves; To rend the trunk or rugged bark ; No gale to bend the branch ; No quake of earth to heave the roots, Had ne'er a hole To hide a living thing! No scooping hollow cell to lodge The martin, bat, Or forest cat That nightly loves to prowl, Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud The moping, snoring owl. But still the sound was in my ear, And sometimes underground 'Twas in a shady Avenue Where lofty Elms abound. O hath the Dryad still a tongue To make the forest voluble, The olden time is dead and gone; From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch E'er hovers round, Unless the vagrant breeze, The music of the merry bird, Or hum of busy bees. But busy bees forsake the Elm That bears no bloom aloft The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush, And among the firs the brooding Dove, Yet still I heard that solemn sound, And each minuter shoot; From rugged trunk and mossy rind, And from the twisted root. From these, a melancholy moan; No sign or touch of stirring air Or force the filmy gossamers In still and silent slumber hush'd From heaven above, or earth beneath, From that MYSTERIOUS TREE! A hollow, hollow, hollow sound, As is that dreamy roar When distant billows boil and bound Along a shingly shore But the ocean brim was far aloof, A hundred miles or more. No murmur of the gusty sea, However they may foam and fret, The bounded sense could reachMethought the trees in mystic tongue Were talking each to each!- Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales Beneath their boughs; Or blood obscurely spilt; Or of that near-hand Mansion House A Royal Tudor built. Perchance, of booty won or shared Beneath the starry cope- Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop'd Whereon the grass is rank― And privy leagues, Tradition leaves in blank. Of traitor lips that mutter'd plots— |