His hand was stay'd; he knew not why:
'Twas a presence breath'd around-
A pleading from the deep-blue sky,

And up from the teeming ground.

It told of the care that lavish'd had been

In sunshine and in dew

Of the many things that had wrought a screen When peril around it grew.

It told of the oak that once had bow'd,

As feeble a thing to see;

But now, when the storm was raging loud,
It wrestled mightily.

There's a deeper thought on the schoolboy's brow,
A new love at his heart;

And he ponders much, as with footsteps slow

He turns him to depart.

Up grew the twig, with a vigor bold,

In the shade of the parent tree,

And the old oak knew that his doom was told,

When the sapling sprang so free.

Then the fierce winds came, and they raging tore The hollow limbs away;

And the damp moss crept from the earthly floor Around the trunk, time-worn and gray.

The young oak grew, and proudly grew,
For its roots were deep and strong;
And a shadow broad on the earth it threw,
And the sunlight linger'd long

On its glossy leaf, where the flickering light
Was flung to the evening sky;

And the wild bird came to its airy height,
And taught her young to fly.

In acorn time came the truant boy,
With a wild and eager look,

And he mark'd the tree with a wondering joy,
As the wind the great limbs shook.

He look'd where the moss on the north side grew,
The gnarled arms outspread,

The solemn shadow the huge tree threw,
As it tower'd above his head;

And vague-like fears the boy surround,
In the shadow of that tree;

So growing up from the darksome ground,
Like a giant mystery.

His heart beats quick to the squirrel's tread.
On the wither'd leaf and dry,

And he lifts not up his awe-struck head
As the eddying wind sweeps by.

And regally the stout oak stood,
In its vigor and its pride;

A monarch own'd in the solemn wood,
With a sceptre spreading wide-
No more in the wintry blast to bow,
Or rock in the summer breeze;
But draped in green, or star-like snow,
Reign king of the forest trees.

ELIZABETH O. SMITH.

And a thousand years it firmly grew,

And a thousand blasts defied;

And, mighty in strength, its broad arms threw
A shadow dense and wide.

It

grew where the rocks were bursting out

From the thin and heaving soil

Where the ocean's roar, and the sailor's shout, Were mingled in wild turmoil

Where the far-off sound of the restless deep
Came up with a booming swell;

And the white foam dash'd to the rocky steep,
But it loved the tumult well.

Then its huge limbs creaked in the midnight air, And join'd in the rude uproar;

For it loved the storm and the lightning's glare And the sound of the breaker's roar.

The bleaching bones of the sea-bird's prey
Were heap'd on the rocks below;
And the bald-head eagle, fierce and gray,
Look'd off from its topmost bough.
Where its shadow lay on the quiet wave
The light-boat often swung,

And the stout ship, saved from the ocean grave,
Her cable round it flung.

Change came to the mighty things of earth-
Old empires pass'd away;

Of the generations that had birth,

O Death! where, where were they?

Yet fresh and green the brave oak stood,
Nor dream'd it of decay,

Though a thousand times in the autumn wood
Its leaves on the pale earth lay.

A sound comes down in the forest trees,
And echoing from the hill;

It floats far off on the summer breeze,
And the shore resounds it shrill.

Lo! the monarch tree no more shall stand

Like a watch-tower of the main

The strokes fall thick from the woodman's hand And its falling shakes the plain.

The stout live oak!-'twas a worthy tree,
And the builder mark'd it out;

And he smiled its angled limbs to see,
As he measured the trunk about.
Already to him was a gallant bark
Careering the rolling deep,

And in sunshine, calm, or tempest dark,
Her way she will proudly keep.

The chisel clicks, and the hammer rings,
And the merry jest goes round;
While he who longest and loudest sings
Is the stoutest workman found.
With jointed rib, and trunnel'd plank
The work goes gayly on,

And light-spoke oaths, when the glass they drank,
Are heard till the task is done.

ELIZABETH O. SMITH.

She sits on the rocks, the skeleton ship,
With her oaken ribs all bare,
And the child looks up with parted lip,

As it gathers fuel there

With brimless hat, the barefoot boy
Looks round with strange amaze,
And dreams of a sailor's life of joy
Are mingling in that gaze.

With graceful waist and carvings brave
The trim hull waits the sea
And proudly stoops to the crested wave,
While round go the cheerings three.
Her prow swells up from the yeasty deep,
Where it plung'd in foam and spray:
And the glad waves gathering round her sweep
And buoy her in their play.

Thou wert nobly rear'd, O heart of oak!
In the sound of the ocean roar,

Where the surging wave o'er the rough rock broke,
And bellow'd along the shore ·

And how wilt thou in the storm rejoice,

With the wind through spar and shroud,

To hear a sound like the forest voice,
When the blast was raging loud!

With snow-white sail, and streamer gay,
She sits like an ocean-sprite,
Careering on in her trackless way,

In sunshine or dark midnight;