And here, when snow in frozen billows bound thee,
Like a white ocean deluging the land,
And smaller trunks, or near or far, were round thee
Like masts of vessels sunken on the strand,
We climbed high up thy naked boughs, enchanted,
Shaking whole sheets of spotless canvas down,
And, by keen frosts and breezes nothing daunted,
Hailed the slow sledges from the neighboring town.
Ah! flown delights! ah! happiness departed!
What have I known like you, since, light and free,
And undefiled, and bold and merry-hearted,
I used to frolic by the old oak-tree!
II.
Long years ago I left my father's mansion,
Through many realms, in various climates roamed,
Speeding away o'er all Earth's wide expansion,
Where icebergs glittered, and where torrents foamed.
From pole to pole, across the hot Equator,
Restless as sea-gulls whirling o'er the deep;
From Snowden's crown to Ætna's fiery crater,
From Indian valley to Caucasian steep;
From Chimborazo, loftiest of all mountains
Trod by man's foot, to Nova Zembla's shore;
From Iceland Hecla's ever-boiling fountains,
To where Cape Horn's incessant surges roar;
From France's vineyards to Antarctic regions,
From England's pastures to Arabia's sands,
From the rude North, with her unnumbered legions,
To the sweet South's depopulated lands;
O'er all those scenes, or beautiful or splendid,
Which man risks wealth, and peace, and life to see,
I roved at will—but all my journeys ended,
Returned to gaze upon the old oak-tree.
But, ah! beneath those broad, outreaching branches,
What other forms, what different feet had strayed,
Since I, a youth, went forth to dare the chances
Which adverse Fortune in my path had laid.