DEATH OF THE FOREST MONARCH.
Hark! heard you that wailing cry, sad and low?
A nation mourning for their chief?
Stricken and dead he lies, and blow by blow
Is being stripp’d of limb and leaf;
Now from his corse is ta’en the wreath,
His just reward for battling many a year
’Gainst elements; mourn him! your grief,
Ye trees, becomes the time; the world should hear
Your requiem, and for him drop a tear.
Each year the wild bird built its nest
High in his crown, and would its young uprear:
Centuries supreme the Forest
Monarch ruled; but to Earth’s broad breast
That nourished him, the ax brought his return.
The Forest Monarch is at rest;
All nature, save the human, seems to mourn.
—George W. H. Phillips, Jr.