ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 93 



Poised o'er the blue abyss, the morning lark 



Sang, wheeling near in rapturous carouse; 

 And hart and hind, soft pacing through the dark, 



Slept underneath my boughs. 



1 felt the mountain walls below me shake. 



Vibrant with sound, and through my branches poured 

 The glorious gust : my song thereto did make 



Magnificent accord. 



Some blind harmonic instinct pierced the rind 



Of that slow life which made me straight and high; 



And I became a harp for every wind, 

 A voice for every sky ; 



When fierce autumnal gales began to blow, 



Roaring all day in concert, hoarse and deep; 



And then made silent with my weight of snow 

 A spectre on the steep; 



And thus for centuries my rhythmic chant 



Rolled down the gorge, or surged about the hill : 



Gentle, or stern, or sad, or jubilant, 

 At even' season's will. 



No longer memory whispers whence arose 



The doom that tore me from my place of pride : 



Whether the storms that load the peak with snows 

 And start the mountain slide, 



Let fall a fiery bolt to smite my top, 



Upwrenched my roots, and o'er the precipice 



Hurled me, a dangling wreck, erelong to drop 

 Into the wild abyss; 



Or whether hands of men. with scornful strength 

 And force from Nature's rugged armory lent, 



Sawed through my heart and rolled my tumbling length, 

 Sheer down the deep descent. 



All sense departed with the boughs I wore; 



And though I moved with mighty gales at strife, 

 A mast upon the seas, I sang no more, 



And music was mv life. 



