"No, no, give him to me—my arms ache without him."
"But the hill—my big baby!"
"Oh, I must have him—Larrie, let me—see, he is so light—why, he is nothing to carry."
THE OLD GUM.
Stand here; he has once been a grand old gum,
But it makes one reflect that the time will come
When we all shall have had our fling;
Yet, our life soon passes, we scarce know how—
You would hardly think, to see him now,
That once he had been a king.
In his youth, in the silence of the wood,
A forest of saplings around him stood;
But he overtopped them all.
And, over their heads, through the forest shade,
He could see how the sunlight danced and played,
So straight he grew, and so tall.
Each day of his life brought something new,
The breeze stirred the bracken, the dry leaves flew,
The wild bird passed on the wing:
He heard the low, sad song of the wood,
His childhood was passed in its solitude;
And he grew—and became a king.
Oft has he stood on the stormy night,
When the long-forked flash has revealed to sight
The plain where the floods were out;
When the wind came down like a hurricane,
And the branches, broken and snapped in twain,
Were scattered and strewn about.
Oft, touched by the reddening bush-fire glow,
When clouds of smoke, rolling up from below,
Obscured the sun like a pall;
When the forest seemed like a flaming sea,
And down came many a mighty tree,
Has he stood firm through it all.