“And the merry men of wild and glen,
In the green array they wore,
Have feasted here with the red wine’s cheer,
And the hunter-songs of yore.
“And the minstrel, resting in my shade,
Hath made the forest ring
With the lordly tales of the high crusade,
Once loved by chief and king.
“But now the noble forms are gone,
That walk’d the earth of old;
The soft wind hath a mournful tone,
The sunny light looks cold.
“There is no glory left us now
like the glory with the dead:—
I would that where they slumber low,
My latest leaves were shed.”
Oh! thou dark tree, thou lonely tree,
That mournest for the past!
A peasant’s home in thy shade I see,
Embower’d from every blast.
A lovely and a mirthful sound
Of laughter meets mine ear;
For the poor man’s children sport around
On the turf, with nought to fear.
And roses lend that cabin’s wall
A happy summer-glow,
And the open door stands free to all,
For it recks not of a foe.
And the village-bells are on the breeze
That stirs thy leaf, dark tree!—
—How can I mourn, amidst things like these,
For the stormy past with thee?
F. H. New Monthly Magazine.