To an Old Maple Tree - An 1851 Poem
By Mrs. J.H. Dimock, of Montrose.
- I have loved thee from my childhood,
- Thou old and moss grown tree!
- And a thousand gentle memories
- Are linked with thoughts of thee.
- Sweet visions of that olden time,
- When, with joyous heart I strayed
- To seek the earliest white flowers,
- By the streamlet 'neath thy shade.
-
- There, when at spring's soft breathings,
- The snow-wreath fled away,
- Each green and mossy knowl was gemmed
- With partridge-berries gay,
- The May-flower and the violet
- Peeped from their bed of mould,
- And the dark wake-robbbin nodded
- By the adder's-tongue of gold.
-
- The feathery fern waved to the breeze,
- With a wild wood fragrance fraught,
- While the brown thrush, for her callow brood,
- Its sheltering covert sought,
- And among thy spreading branches,
- In their soft, pale green array,
- The song sparrow trilled his earliest notes,
- And the blue bird poured his lay.
-
- I've loved thee! when the glad spring brought
- Her gifts of bloom and mirth,
- Nor less when summer's loveliness
- Came flashing o'er the earth.
- For thou hast worn quite regally,
- They coronal of green,
- And stood a monarch of the wood,
- In the sunlight's glorious sheen.
-
- And when the change came o'er thee,
- In the pensive autumn day's --
- When vale and upland, grove and stream,
- Were veiled in sober haze,
- Thou dids't thy gorgeous robes put on
- Of crimson and of gold,
- And proudly yield the honors up
- Thou might'st not longer hold.
-
- Majestic still, though shorn, thou'st stood
- With thy light tracery
- Revealed, in fairy pencillings 'gainst
- The clear and star lit sky.
- Then the wintry sun came brightly down,
- And lingering o'er thy crest,
- Each tiny twig, with frost o'er wrought,
- In glittering gems seemed dressed.
-
- And oft, when through the starry boughs,
- The storm-king wild has raved,
- I've joyed to see how nobly thou
- His violence has braved.
- But a spoiler has been busy 'mongst
- They brethren of the shade.
- And I sigh to mark the ravages
- The woodman's axe has made.
-
- Thou stand'st almost alone, old tree!
- The stream has shrunk and dried,
- And the flowers, beneath the sun's fierce glare,
- From their old haunts have died.
- Thou too, ere long, old cherished friend,
- Must bow they stately head!
- So pass from earth its loveliest
- And noblest, to the dead.
October 15, 1851. Lewisburg Chronicle 8(29): 1.