86 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



To stay the fury of the ruthless blast? 



Low here thou liest, and I thy fate bewail. 

 No longer shalt thou brave the wintry gale, 



Nor in thy branching arms, and green array, 

 Shelter the feather'd tribes when foes assail, 



Nor strew thy russet honours in our way 

 At autumn-tide. Methinks I see the day, 



When he who mourns thy lot like thee shall fall ; 

 Nor does the thought his stedfast soul dismay, 



Taught by repeated storms to bear it all 1 

 Thou, prostrate tree, shalt never more rebloom, 



But he shall rise in triumph o'er the tomb." 



Millhouse. 



The weak voice ceased, and another oak told his tale 

 from the highest point of Great Whitby Hill. I too was an 

 acorn once, a cup and ball of nature's making ; but I grew 

 up a lordly tree, shading with my branches men of many 

 generations, who came to rest beneath me, woad-dyed 

 chiefs of Britain, and their Saxon conquerors; polished 

 Romans, and ruthless men from Denmark ; but long 

 before the cumbrous vessels of the latter neared the coasts 

 of "Wales, an aged man, bearing a pastoral staff, and 

 wearing sacerdotal vestments, sat down beneath my shade. 



