A mighty growth! The County side
Lamented when the giant died,
For England loves her trees:
What misty legends round him cling!
How lavishly he once would fling
His acorns to the breeze!

Who struck a thousand roots in fame,
Who gave the district half its name,
Will not soon be forgotten:
Last spring he showed but one green bough,
The red leaves hang there still, and now
His very props are rotten!

Elate, the thunderbolt he braved,
For centuries his branches waved
A welcome to the blast;
From reign to reign he bore a spell-
No forester had dared to fell
What Time had felled at last.

The monarch wore a leafy crown,
And wolves, ere wolves were hunted down,
Sought safety in his gloom;
Unnumbered squirrels froliced free,
Glad music filled the gallant tree
From stem to topmost bloom.

'Twere hard to say, 'twere vain to seek
When first he ventured forth, a meek
Petitioner for dew;
No Saxon spade disturbed his root,
The rabbit spared his tender shoot,
And valiantly he grew,

And showed some inches from the ground
When St Augustine came and found
Us very proper Vandals:
When nymphs had bluer eyes than hose,
When England measured men by blows
And measured time by candles.

The pilgrim blessed his grateful shade
Ere Richard led the first crusade,
And maidens led the dance
Where, boy and man, in summer-time,
Our Chaucer pondered o'er his rhyme;
And Robin Hood perchance,

Stole hither to Maid Marian
(And if they did not come, one can
At any rate, suppose it);
They met beneath the mistletoe,-
We've done the same, and ought to know
The reason why they chose it!

And this was called the Traitor's Branch,
Stern Warwick hung six yoemen staunch
Along its mighty fork;
Uncivil wars for them! The fair
Red rose and white still bloom, - but where
Are Lancaster and York?

Right mournfully his leaves he shed
To shroud the graves of England's dead,
By English falchion slain;
And cheerfully for England's sake,
He sent his kin to sea with Drake,
When Tudor humbled Spain.

While Blake was fighting with the Dutch
They gave his poor old arms a crutch;
And thrice four men and maids ate
A meal within his rugged bark,
When Coventry bewitched the Park,
and Chatham swayed the Senate.

His few remaining boughs were green,
And dappled sunbeams danced between
Upon the dappled deer,
When clad in black, two mourners met
To read the Waterloo Gazette,-
They mourned their darling here.

They joined their boy. The tree at last
Lies prone, discoursing of the past,
Some fancy-dreams awaking;
Resigned, though headlong changes come,
Though nations arm to tuck of drum,
And dynasties are quaking.

Romantic spot! By honest pride
Of old tradition sanctified;
My pensive vigil keeping,
I feel thy beauty like a spell,
And thoughts, and tender thoughts upwell,
That fill my heart to weeping.

The Squire affirms, with gravest look,
His Oak goes up to Domesday book!
And some say even higher!
We rode last week to see the ruin,
We love the fair domain it grew in,
As well we love the Squire.

A nature, loyally controlled,
And fashioned in the righteous mould
Of English gentleman;
Some day my child will read these rhymes,
She loved her 'Godpapa' betimes, -
The little Christian!

I love the past, its ripe pleasance,
Its lusty thought, and dim romance,
And heart-compelling ditties;
But more, these ties, in mercy sent,
With faith and true affection blent,
And, wanting them, were I content
To murmur 'Nunc Dimittis'.