PIO EER VY. 919 
As now, and with excoriate forks, deform, 
Relicts of ages! Could a mind, imbued 
With truth from Heaven, created thing adore, 
I might with rev’rence kneel, and worship thee! 
It seems idolatry with some excuse, 
When our forefather Druids in their oaks 
Imagin’d sanétity. ‘The conscience, yet 
Unpurified by an authentic aét 
Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine, 
Lov’d uot the light, but, gloomy, into gloom 
Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste 
Of fruit proscrib’d, as to a refuge, fled ! 
Thou wast a bauble once ; a cup and ball, 
Which babes might play with ; and the thievish jay, 
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin’d 
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down 
Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs, 
And all thy embryo vastness, at a gulp. 
But fate thy growth decreed: autumnal rains, 
Beneath thy parent tree, mellow’d the soil, 
Design’d thy cradle, and a skipping deer, 
With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepar’d 
The soft receptacle, in which secure 
Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through. 
So fancy dreams—disprove it if ye can 
Ye reas’ners broad awake, whose busy search 
Of argument, employ’d too oft amiss, 
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away ! 
Thou fell’st mature, and in the loamy clod 
Swelling with vegetable force, instinét 
Did’st burst thine egg, as their’s the fabled twins, 
Now stars ; two lobes protruding pair exact : 
A leaf succeeded, and another leaf, 
And, all the elements thy puny growth 
Fostering propitious, thou becam’st a twig. 
Who liv’d when thou wast such? Oh! coulds’t thou speak, 
As in Dodona once thy kindred trees 
Oracular, I would not curious ask 
The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth 
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past! 
By thee I might correét, erroneous oft, | 
The clock of history, faéts and events 
3N4 ‘Timing 
