The Old Gnarled Oak

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.