  I seem to see the old tree stand, Its sturdy, giant form A spectacle remembered, and A pilgrim-shrine for all the land Before it met the storm. Unnumbered gales the tree defied; It towered like a king Above his courtiers, reaching wide, And sheltering scions at its side As with protecting wing. Revered as one among the trees To mark the seasons born, To watchful aborigines It told by leafy indices The time of planting corn. The landmark of the past is gone, Its site is overgrown; A mansion overlooks the lawn Where history is traced upon A parapet of stone. What unto it we owe— How Wadsworth coped with Andros' threat, And tyranny, in council met, Outwitted years ago? Aye, but it rouses loyal spunk To think of that old tree! Its stately stem, its spacious trunk By Nature robbed of pith and punk To guard our liberty. But of the oak long-perished, why Is earth forever full? For, like the loaf and fish supply, Its stock of fiber, tough and dry, Seems inexhaustible. Rare souvenirs the stranger sees— Who never sees a joke— And innocently dreams that these, From knotty, gnarly, scraggy trees, Were once the Charter Oak! |
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