"Mine all upon the earth,
The Angel's angel-birth,
Smiling each terror from the howling wild."
Never may I forget
The dream that haunts me yet,
Of Patience nursing Hope—the Angel and the Child
TO A WITHERED TREE IN JUNE.
Desolate tree! why are thy branches bare?
What hast thou done
To win strange winter from the summer air,
Frost from the sun?
Thou wert not churlish in thy palmier year
Unto the herd;
Tenderly gav'st thou shelter to the deer,
Home to the bird.
And ever once, the earliest of the grove,
Thy smiles were gay,
Opening thy blossoms with the haste of love
To the young May.
Then did the bees, and all the insect wings
Around thee gleam;
Feaster and darling of the gilded things
That dwell i' the beam.
Thy liberal course, poor prodigal, is sped;
How lonely now!
How bird and bee, light parasites, have fled
The leafless bough!
"Tell me, sad tree, why are thy branches bare?
What hast thou done
To win strange winter from the summer air,
Frost from the sun?"
"Never," replied that forest-hermit lone
(Old truth and endless!)
"Never for evil done, but fortune flown,
Are we left friendless.