The Oak

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1. What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his!
2. There needs no crown to mark the forest's king;
3. How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss!
4. Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring,
5. Which he with such benignant royalty 5
6. Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent;
7. All nature seems his vassal proud to be,
8. And cunning only for his ornament.
9.  
10. How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows,
11. An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, 10
12. Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows,
13. Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown.
14. His boughs make music of the winter air,
15. Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front
16. Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair 15
17. The dints and furrows of time's envious brunt.
18.  
19. How doth his patient strength the rude March wind
20. Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze,
21. And win the soil that fain would be unkind,
22. To swell his revenues with proud increase! 20
23. He is the gem; and all the landscape wide
24. (So doth his grandeur isolate the sense)
25. Seems but the setting, worthless all beside,
26. An empty socket, were he fallen thence.
27.  
28. So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales, 25
29. Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots
30. The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails
31. The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots?
32. So every year that falls with noiseless flake
33. Should fill old scars up on the stormward side, 30
34. And make hoar age revered for age's sake,
35. Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride.
36.  
37. So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate,
38. True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth,
39. So between earth and heaven stand simply great, 35
40. That these shall seem but their attendants both;
41. For nature's forces with obedient zeal
42. Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will;
43. As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel,
44. And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still.[18] 40
45.  
46. Lord! all Thy works are lessons; each contains
47. Some emblem of man's all-containing soul;
48. Shall he make fruitless all Thy glorious pains,
49. Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole?
50. Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove,[19] 45
51. Cause me some message of thy truth to bring,
52. Speak but a word to me, nor let thy love
53. Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing.
54.  
55. [Footnote 18: See Shakspeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.]
56.  
57. [Footnote 19: A grove of oaks at Dodona, in ancient Greece, was the
58. seat of a famous oracle.]