Classic Poem

We fear not the thunder, we fear not the rain,
For our stems are stout and long;
Or the growling winds, though they blow amain,
For our roots are great and strong;
Our voice is eternal, our song sublime,
And its theme is the days of yore —
Back thousands of years of misty time,
When we first grew old and hoar!

Deep down in the crevice our roots were hid,
And our limbs were thick and green
Ere Cheops had builded his pyramid,
Or the Sphinx's form was seen.
Whole forests have risen within our ken,
Which withered upon the plain;
And cities, and race after race of men,
Have risen and sunk again.

We commune with the stars thro' the paly night,
For we love to talk with them;
The wind is our harp, and the marvellous light
Of the moon our diadem.
Like the murmur of ocean our branches stir
When the night air whispers low;
Like the voices of ocean our voices are,
When the hurtling tempests blow.

We nod to the sun ere the glimmering morn
Prints her sandals on the mere;
We part with the sun when the stars are borne
By the silvery waters clear.
And when lovers are breathing a thousand vows,
With their hearts and cheeks aglow,
We chant a love strain 'mid our breezy boughs,
Of a thousand years ago!

We stand all aloof, for the giant's strength
Craveth naught from lesser powers;
'Tis the shrub that loveth the fertile ground,
But the sturdy rock is ours!
We tower aloft where the hunters lag
By the weary mountain side,
By the jaggy cliff, by the grimy crag,
And the chasms yawning wide.

When the great clouds march in a mountain heap,
By the light of the dwindled sun,
We steady our heads 'gainst their misty sweep,
And accost them one by one.
Then our limbs they jostle in thunder-mirth,
And the storm-fires flash again;
But baffled and weary they sink to earth,
And the monarch-stems remain.

The passage of years doth not move us much,
And Time himself grows old
Ere we bow to his flight, or feel his touch
In our " limbs of giant mould. "
And the dwarfs of the wood, by decay oppressed,
With our laughter grim we mock;
For the burden of age doth lightly rest
On the ancient forest folk.

Cold Winter, who filches the flying leaf,
And steals the floweret's sheen,
Can injure us not, or work us grief,
Or make our tops less green.
And Spring, who awakens her sleeping train
By meadow, and hill, and lea,
Brings no new life to our old domain,
Unfading, stern, and free.

Sublime in our solitude, changeless, vast,
While men build, work, and save,
We mock — for their years glide away to the past,
And we grimly look on their grave.
Our voice is eternal, our song sublime,
For its theme is the days of yore —
Back thousands of years of misty time,
When we first grew old and hoar.