Classic Poem

Long , long ago, in the faded past,
A breeze from the Indigo Hills —
Where every morn the sun is born
'Mid fair Santa Rita's rills —

On its fragrant breath a seedling bore
Across the arm of the sea,
And on the shore where the breakers roar
It planted the sea-grape tree.

And old Mother Carib nursed it long,
And chanted it lullabies;
And over each leaf from out on the reef
She watched with vigilant eyes.

And the rain and the mist and the gentle dew
Brought strength to its lengthening roots;
And the sun with his light and the moon with her light,
Both nourished its tender shoots.

And so the tree grew to a wondrous size,
And in wondrous shape as well;
Yet weird tho' its look, there never was book
That could weirder stories tell!

For within the memory of man 'tis known
That, under its spreading shade,
Full many a one, his travail done,
His bed of death hath made.

And below its branches men have sat
And plotted a nation's wrong;
While lovers have met, as they sit there yet,
To murmur the world-sweet song
.
And many a fateful duel there
Have lifelong comrades fought;
And near to its seat have children's feet
For the branching coral sought.

Around its trunk the mummers have danced
To the clicking castinet,
And beneath its boughs the gay carouse
And funeral train have met!

Yet all undisturbed by Nature's hand,
On the shores of the changeful sea,
Oblivious still to the good or the ill,
Standeth the sea-grape tree!

EPITAPH

Thou can'st not censure more than we,
The vandal hand that laid thee low: —
But any fool can fell a tree —
Tho' it takes a God to make one grow!