BETRAYED.
“A rock had chosen a pine for his bride,
In his rugged arms he bore her,
And vowed, as he cradled her early growth,
For ever he’d keep and adore her.
She was his; who should tear her away from his side?
So deep her roots had she driven;
She clasped him firmly with loving embrace,
That his stony heart was riven.
But the west wind rose, and with angry breath,
He cried ‘Let her go, she is mine!’
So the stormy blast and the love-lorn rock
Strove each with each for the pine.
Till, poised for a moment, as if in doubt,
The pine fell trembling over,
And tore herself loose from the rock’s caress,
And took the storm for her lover.
But little recked he of the pine laid low
As he blustered in mirth down the valley,
Through rocks and forests cleaving his way
With many another to dally.
She clutched with powerless arms at space,
But might not arrest her ruin;
Headlong she fell and abandoned lay
Far from the place she grew in.
And the rock, forlorn, gazed down the abyss
Where she lay at the foot of the mountain,
While, swollen with tears, from his stony side,
Burst forth a perennial fountain.
It shall pour down his side, a ceaseless flood,
In search of the pine for ages;
Time healeth not the gaping wound
Nor the depth of his woe assuages.