Old Gnarled Oak, The

Ha! Winter has no frost today

Warm as the June air is the breath

That wets my faded leaves aplay

And stirs the vital flow beneath,

For Sunshine, with a lover’s kiss,

Melts through and through me flushed with bliss.

The russet gray that Autumn gives

What tho’ the winter gales have thinned

While round my bared limbs clinging, lives

The summer glow, the soft warm wind

Caressing the old gnarled trunk

That throbs with subtle sun-wine drunk!

Sweet Sunshine, do not pass away,

Or passing melt into my heart

And fill, and thrill me night and day –

Of all my inmost life a part:

Then, be it round me dark or fair

My glowing care shall fell thee there!

Warm ovatae of life’s great sun,

Born with the new year’s infant days,

Sweeter thy coming, while my own

Have chilled me with enfeebled rays,

Soft summer day in winter’s reign

The gray oak blesses thee full fain!

How poor is he who hears no sound

But that which vibrates on the ear,

Sees only what the eyelids bound,

And touches but the grass and near!

The ox that feeds in daisied fields

Is all as rich in what life yields.

Title: Old Gnarled Oak, The
Alternative Title: Ha! Winter has no frost today
Creator: George Shepard Burleigh; George Shepard Burleigh
Bibliographic Citation: "Unpublished Poems from the Manuscript Collection of Miss Bessy Grey of Little Compton," in Spies, Minnie Lee, George Shepard Burleigh. Masters’ Thesis, Department of English, Brown University, 1934, p. 53-54.; Poems by George and Ruth Burleigh, edited by Mary Louise Brown, 1941, held by Little Compton Historical Society, Box A47.24
Date: 1876
Subject: Nature; Seasons; New Year
note: Subtitle gives the date "In the warm sun of Jan 1, 1876"; In the Brown edited collection, the hand-written manuscript is incomplete. It says "over" but there is no overlead in the collection, and it is thus missing the last two stanzas. The full poem is presented here.