It seemed corrival of the world’s great prime,
Made to un-edge the scythe of Time,
And last with stateliest rhyme.
No tender Dryad ever did indue
That rigid chiton of rough yew,
To fret her white flesh through:
But some god like to those grim Asgard lords,
Who walk the fables of the hordes
From Scandinavian fjords,
Upheaved its stubborn girth, and raised unriven,
Against the whirl-blast and the levin,
Defiant arms to Heaven.
When doom puffed out the stars, we might have said,
It would decline its heavy head,
And see the world to bed.
For this firm yew did from the vassal leas,
And rain and air, its tributaries,
Its revenues increase,
And levy impost on the golden sun,
Take the blind years as they might run,
And no fate seek or shun.
But now our yew is strook, is fallen—yea
Hacked like dull wood of every day
To this and that, men say.
Never!—To Hades’ shadowy shipyards gone,
Dim barge of Dis, down Acheron
It drops, or Lethe wan.
Stirred by its fall—poor destined bark of Dis!—
Along my soul a bruit there is
Of echoing images,