Lo! a voice to my invoking!
’Twas my stupid gardener croaking,
“Please, Sir, mayn’t I fall this tree,
’Cos it spoils the crops, you see:
And the grass it shades and lumbers,
And we shan’t have no cowcumbers.
Some time it will fall for good,
And the Missis wants the wood.”
Shock’d at such a scheme audacious,
Faint, I gasp’d out, “Goodness gracious!”
“Yes,” I said, “the tree must fall,
’Tis, alas! the lot of all;
But no mortal shall presume
To accelerate its doom.
Rescued from thy low desires,
It shall warm my poet fires.
Let the strokes of fate subdue it,
Let the axe of Time cut through it;
When it must fall, let it fall,
But, oh! never let me view it.”
Seeing that my phrase exalted
Fell upon his senses vainly,
In my full career I halted,
And I spoke my orders plainly.
“Never seek to trim or lop it,
Once for all I charge thee, drop it.”
And I added, to my sorrow,
“You shall ‘cut your stick’ to-morrow
Know what that means, I suppose?”
“Yes,” he said, “I thinks I does.”
So I left him at this crisis,
Left him to his own devices,
Left him like the royal Vandal,
Leaning on his old spade handle.
Oh! those vulgar slang expressions,—
How I smart for my transgressions!
Judge my wrath, surprise, and horror,
When I rose upon the morrow,
To behold my tree in ruin,
And be told ’twas all my doing,
While the villain grinn’d in glee!
“Wretch!” I thunder’d, “Where’s my tree?”
And these words came from his lips,
“There’s the tree, and them’s the Chips.”
TRANSFORMATION.
THE LAST SPEECH AND CONFESSION OF A MAHOGANY-TREE NYMPH.
You’ve heard in Greek mythology
Of nymph and hamadryad
Who had their being in a tree;
Perchance, the tale admired.
Yet live we, in oblivion sunk;
Though strange, my tale’s as sure as
That I was once a stately trunk
In the forests of Honduras.
My home was in a jungle low,
And tall tree ferns grew round me;
The humming-birds flew to and fro,
And wild lianas bound me;
The panther, jaguar, and ounce,
Lurk’d ever in my branches
On weary travellers to pounce
While journeying to their ranches.
Me, merchants from Honduras found
Who had not got a log any;
They cut me prostrate on the ground
To make first-rate mahogany.
They pack’d me in a darksome hold;
We cross’d the ocean quivering;
They took me to a region cold
That set my timbers shivering;
Above, an atmosphere of fog;
Around me, masts upstanding—
When they had piled me log by log,
Upon the dockyard landing.
And then they came with rule and chalk
Numb’ring my feet and inches,
And pack’d us high beside that walk
With pullies, cranks, and winches;
And one by one my logs were sold,
And one by one were taken,
Till I, the spirit of the whole,
Was left of form forsaken.
And when the auction sale was past,
Mourning each separate splinter
I flitted formless round the masts,
Through all that ice-bound winter,
Still with benumb’d and torpid sense
All plan or hope deferring,
Till, when the spring sun shone intense,
My spirit’s sap was stirring,