ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
145 
THE LIVE OAK. 
W ITH his gnarled old arms, and his iron form 
Majestic in the wood, 
From age to age, in the sun and storm, 
The live-oak long hath stood, 
With his stately air, that grave old tree, 
He stands like a hooded monk, 
With the gray moss waving solemnly 
From his shaggy limbs and trunk. 
And the generations come and go, 
And still he stands upright, 
And he sternly looks on the wood below, 
As conscious of his might. 
But a mourner sad is the hoary tree, 
A mourner sad and lone, 
And is clothed in funeral drapery 
For the long-since dead and gone. 
For the Indian hunter, beneath his shade, 
Has rested from the chase ; 
And he here has wooed his dusky maid — 
The dark-eyed of her race; 
And the tree is red with the gushing gore, 
As the wild deer panting dies ; 
But the maid is gone and the chase is o’er. 
And the old oak hoarsely sighs. 
In former days, when the battle’s din- 
Was loud amid the land, 
In his friendly shadow, few and thin, 
Have gathered Freedom’s band ; 
And the stern old oak, how proud was he 
To shelter hearts so brave ! 
• But they all are gone,— the bold and free,— 
And he moans above their grave. 
And the aged oak, with his locks of gray, 
Is ripe for the sacrifice ; 
For the worm and decay, no lingering prey, 
Shall he tower towards the skies ! 
He falls, he falls, to become our guard, 
The bulwark of the free ; 
And his bosom of steel is proudly bared 
To brave the raging sea ! 
