O! well within his fatal path
The fearful tree might quake
Through every fibre, twig, and leaf,
With aspen tremor shake;

Through trunk and root,

And branch and shoot,

A low complaining make!

O! well to him the tree might breathe A sad and solemn sound,

A sigh that murmured overhead,

And groans from underground; As in that shady avenue

Where lofty elms abound!

But calm and mute the maple stands, The plane, the ash, the fir,

The elm, the beech, the drooping birch, Without the least demur;

And e'en the aspen's hoary leaf

Makes no unusual stir.

The pines

those old gigantic pines,

That writhe recalling soon

The famous human group that writhes

With snakes in wild festoon

In ramous wrestlings interlaced

A forest Laocoon

Like Titans of primeval girth

By tortures overcome,

Their brown enormous limbs they twine,

Bedewed with tears of gum

Fierce agonies that ought to yell,

But, like the marble, dumb.

Nay, yonder blasted elm that stands
So like a man of sin,

Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad
To feel the worm within —
For all that gesture, so intense,
It makes no sort of din!

An universal silence reigns
In rugged bark or peel,
Except that very trunk which rings
Beneath the biting steel
Meanwhile the woodman plies his axe

With unrelenting zeal!

No rustic song is on his tongue,
No whistle on his lips;
But, with a quiet thoughtfulness

His trusty tool he grips,

And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out

The bright and flying chips.

Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint

He spreads the fatal gash;
Till, lo! the remnant fibres rend,
With harsh and sudden crash,
And on the dull-resounding turf
The jarring branches lash!

O! now the forest trees may sigh,
The ash, the poplar tall,

The elm, the birch, the drooping beech,

The aspens

one and all,

With solemn groan

And hollow moan

Lament a comrade's fall!

A goodly elm, of noble girth,
That, thrice the human span
While on their variegated course
The constant seasons ran
Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt,
Had stood erect as man.

But now, like mortal man himself,
Struck down by hand of God,
Or heathen idol tumbled prone
Beneath the Eternal's nod,
In all its giant bulk and length
It lies along the sod!

Ay, now the forest trees may grieve
And make a common moan
Around that patriarchal trunk
So newly overthrown ;
And with a murmur recognize
A doom to be their own!

The echo sleeps: the idle axe,
A disregarded tool,

Lies crushing with its passive weight
The toad's reputed stool-
The woodman wipes his dewy brow
Within the shadows cool.

:

No zephyr stirs the ear may catch
The smallest insect hum;

But on the disappointed sense
No mystic whispers come;
No tone of sylvan sympathy,
The forest trees are dumb.

No leafy noise, nor inward voice,
No sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmurs overhead,
And sometimes underground;
As in that shady avenue,
Where lofty elms abound!

PART III.

The deed is done: the tree is low
That stood so long and firm;
The woodman and his axe are gone,
His toil has found its term ;

And where he wrought the speckled thrush
Securely hunts the worm.

The cony from the sandy bank

Has run a rapid race,

Through thistle, 'bent, and tangled fern,

To seek the open space;

And on its haunches sits erect

To clean its furry face.

The dappled fawn is close at hand,

The hind is browsing near, And on the larch's lowest bough

The ousel whistles clear;

But checks the note

Within its throat,

As choked with sudden fear!

With sudden fear her wormy quest
The thrush abruptly quits

Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern
The startled cony flits

And on the larch's lowest bough

No more the ousel sits.

With sudden fear

The dappled deer

Effect 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 cold,
And draws a shorter breath ·
An universal panic owns

The dread approach of DEATH!

With silent pace, as shadows come,
And dark as shadows be,

The grisly phantom takes his stand
Beside 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 sounds
Within the hollow skull
"Whoever laid this tree along,

His hatchet was not dull!