ADDRESS
TO
SWILCAR OAK,
DESCRIBED
In Mr. MUNDY’s Poem
ON
NEEDWOOD FOREST,
Hail, stately oak, whose wrinkled trunk hath stood
Age after age, the sov’reign of this wood;
You, who have seen a thousand springs unfold
Their ravell’d buds, and dip their flowers in gold;
Ten thousand times yon moon relight her horn,
And that bright eye of evening gild the morn.
Say, when of old the snow-hair’d druids pray’d
With mad-ey’d rapture in your hallow’d shade,
While to their altars bards and heroes throng,
And crouding nations join the ecstatick song;
Did e’er such dulcet notes arrest your gales,
As Mundy pours along the list’ning vales?
Yes, stately oak, thy leaf-wrapp’d head sublime
Erelong must perish in the wrecks of time;
Shou’d o’er thy brow the thunders harmless break,
And thy firm roots in vain the whirlwinds shake,
Yet must thou fall,—thy withering glories sunk,
Arm after arm shall leave the mould’ring trunk!
But Mundy’s verse shall consecrate thy name,
And rising forests envy Swilcar’s fame:
Green shall thy gems expand, thy branches play,
And bloom for ever in the immortal lay.
E. D.