The Talking Oak
- Once more the gate behind me falls;
- Once more before my face
- I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,
- That stand within the chace.
- Beyond the lodge the city lies,
- Beneath its drift of smoke;
- And ah! with what delighted eyes
- I turn to yonder oak.
- For when my passion first began,
- Ere that, which in me burn'd,
- The love, that makes me thrice a man,
- Could hope itself return'd;
- To yonder oak within the field
- I spoke without restraint,
- And with a larger faith appeal'd
- Than Papist unto Saint.
- For oft I talk'd with him apart
- And told him of my choice,
- Until he plagiarized a heart,
- And answer'd with a voice.
- Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven
- None else could understand;
- I found him garrulously given,
- A babbler in the land.
- But since I heard him make reply
- Is many a weary hour;
- 'Twere well to question him, and try
- If yet he keeps the power.
- Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,
- Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,
- Whose topmost branches can discern
- The roofs of Sumner-place!
- Say thou, whereon I carved her name,
- If ever maid or spouse,
- As fair as my Olivia, came
- To rest beneath thy boughs.---
- "O Walter, I have shelter'd here
- Whatever maiden grace
- The good old Summers, year by year
- Made ripe in Sumner-chace:
- "Old Summers, when the monk was fat,
- And, issuing shorn and sleek,
- Would twist his girdle tight, and pat
- The girls upon the cheek,
- "Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence,
- And number'd bead, and shrift,
- Bluff Harry broke into the spence
- And turn'd the cowls adrift:
- "And I have seen some score of those
- Fresh faces that would thrive
- When his man-minded offset rose
- To chase the deer at five;
- "And all that from the town would stroll,
- Till that wild wind made work
- In which the gloomy brewer's soul
- Went by me, like a stork:
- "The slight she-slips of royal blood,
- And others, passing praise,
- Straight-laced, but all-too-full in bud
- For puritanic stays:
- "And I have shadow'd many a group
- Of beauties, that were born
- In teacup-times of hood and hoop,
- Or while the patch was worn;
- "And, leg and arm with love-knots gay
- About me leap'd and laugh'd
- The modish Cupid of the day,
- And shrill'd his tinsel shaft.
- "I swear (and else may insects prick
- Each leaf into a gall)
- This girl, for whom your heart is sick,
- Is three times worth them all.
- "For those and theirs, by Nature's law,
- Have faded long ago;
- But in these latter springs I saw
- Your own Olivia blow,
- "From when she gamboll'd on the greens
- A baby-germ, to when
- The maiden blossoms of her teens
- Could number five from ten.
- "I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain,
- (And hear me with thine ears,)
- That, tho' I circle in the grain
- Five hundred rings of years---
- "Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
- Did never creature pass
- So slightly, musically made,
- So light upon the grass:
- "For as to fairies, that will flit
- To make the greensward fresh,
- I hold them exquisitely knit,
- But far too spare of flesh."
- Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
- And overlook the chace;
- And from thy topmost branch discern
- The roofs of Sumner-place.
- But thou, whereon I carved her name,
- That oft hast heard my vows,
- Declare when last Olivia came
- To sport beneath thy boughs.
- "O yesterday, you know, the fair
- Was holden at the town;
- Her father left his good arm-chair,
- And rode his hunter down.
- "And with him Albert came on his.
- I look'd at him with joy:
- As cowslip unto oxlip is,
- So seems she to the boy.
- "An hour had past---and, sitting straight
- Within the low-wheel'd chaise,
- Her mother trundled to the gate
- Behind the dappled grays.
- "But as for her, she stay'd at home,
- And on the roof she went,
- And down the way you use to come,
- She look'd with discontent.
- "She left the novel half-uncut
- Upon the rosewood shelf;
- She left the new piano shut:
- She could not please herseif
- "Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,
- And livelier than a lark
- She sent her voice thro' all the holt
- Before her, and the park.
- "A light wind chased her on the wing,
- And in the chase grew wild,
- As close as might be would he cling
- About the darling child:
- "But light as any wind that blows
- So fleetly did she stir,
- The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose,
- And turn'd to look at her.
- "And here she came, and round me play'd,
- And sang to me the whole
- Of those three stanzas that you made
- About my Ôgiant bole;'
- "And in a fit of frolic mirth
- She strove to span my waist:
- Alas, I was so broad of girth,
- I could not be embraced.
- "I wish'd myself the fair young beech
- That here beside me stands,
- That round me, clasping each in each,
- She might have lock'd her hands.
- "Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet
- As woodbine's fragile hold,
- Or when I feel about my feet
- The berried briony fold."
- O muffle round thy knees with fern,
- And shadow Sumner-chace!
- Long may thy topmost branch discern
- The roofs of Sumner-place!
- But tell me, did she read the name
- I carved with many vows
- When last with throbbing heart I came
- To rest beneath thy boughs?
- "O yes, she wander'd round and round
- These knotted knees of mine,
- And found, and kiss'd the name she found,
- And sweetly murmur'd thine.
- "A teardrop trembled from its source,
- And down my surface crept.
- My sense of touch is something coarse,
- But I believe she wept.
- "Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light,
- She glanced across the plain;
- But not a creature was in sight:
- She kiss'd me once again.
- "Her kisses were so close and kind,
- That, trust me on my word,
- Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
- But yet my sap was stirr'd:
- "And even into my inmost ring
- A pleasure I discern'd,
- Like those blind motions of the Spring,
- That show the year is turn'd.
- "Thrice-happy he that may caress
- The ringlet's waving balm---
- The cushions of whose touch may press
- The maiden's tender palm.
- "I, rooted here among the groves
- But languidly adjust
- My vapid vegetable loves
- With anthers and with dust:
- "For ah! my friend, the days were brief
- Whereof the poets talk,
- When that, which breathes within the leaf,
- Could slip its bark and walk.
- "But could I, as in times foregone,
- From spray, and branch, and stem,
- Have suck'd and gather'd into one
- The life that spreads in them,
- "She had not found me so remiss;
- But lightly issuing thro',
- I would have paid her kiss for kiss,
- With usury thereto."
- O flourish high, with leafy towers,
- And overlook the lea,
- Pursue thy loves among the bowers
- But leave thou mine to me.
- O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
- Old oak, I love thee well;
- A thousand thanks for what I learn
- And what remains to tell.
- " Ô Tis little more: the day was warm;
- At last, tired out with play,
- She sank her head upon her arm
- And at my feet she lay.
- "Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves
- I breathed upon her eyes
- Thro' all the summer of my leaves
- A welcome mix'd with sighs.
- "I took the swarming sound of life---
- The music from the town---
- The murmurs of the drum and fife
- And lull'd them in my own.
- "Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
- To light her shaded eye;
- A second flutter'd round her lip
- Like a golden butterfly;
- "A third would glimmer on her neck
- To make the necklace shine;
- Another slid, a sunny fleck,
- From head to ankle fine,
- "Then close and dark my arms I spread,
- And shadow'd all her rest---
- Dropt dews upon her golden head,
- An acorn in her breast.
- "But in a pet she started up,
- And pluck'd it out, and drew
- My little oakling from the cup,
- And flung him in the dew.
- "And yet it was a graceful gift---
- I felt a pang within
- As when I see the woodman lift
- His axe to slay my kin.
- "I shook him down because he was
- The finest on the tree.
- He lies beside thee on the grass.
- O kiss him once for me.
- "O kiss him twice and thrice for me,
- That have no lips to kiss,
- For never yet was oak on lea
- Shall grow so fair as this.'
- Step deeper yet in herb and fern,
- Look further thro' the chace,
- Spread upward till thy boughs discern
- The front of Sumner-place.
- This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
- That but a moment lay
- Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
- Some happy future day.
- I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,
- The warmth it thence shall win
- To riper life may magnetise
- The baby-oak within.
- But thou, while kingdoms overset,
- Or lapse from hand to hand,
- Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
- Thine acorn in the land.
- May never saw dismember thee,
- Nor wielded axe disjoint,
- That art the fairest-spoken tree
- From here to Lizard-point.
- O rock upon thy towery-top
- All throats that gurgle sweet!
- All starry culmination drop
- Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!
- All grass of silky feather grow---
- And while he sinks or swells
- The full south-breeze around thee blow
- The sound of minster bells.
- The fat earth feed thy branchy root,
- That under deeply strikes!
- The northern morning o'er thee shoot,
- High up, in silver spikes!
- Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
- But, rolling as in sleep,
- Low thunders bring the mellow rain,
- That makes thee broad and deep!
- And hear me swear a solemn oath,
- That only by thy side
- Will I to Olive plight my troth,
- And gain her for my bride.
- And when my marriage morn may fall,
- She, Dryad-like, shall wear
- Alternate leaf and acorn-ball
- In wreath about her hair.
- And I will work in prose and rhyme,
- And praise thee more in both
- Than bard has honour'd beech or lime,
- Or that Thessalian growth,
- In which the swarthy ringdove sat,
- And mystic sentence spoke;
- And more than England honours that,
- Thy famous brother-oak,
- Wherein the younger Charles abode
- Till all the paths were dim,
- And far below the Roundhead rode,
- And humm'd a surly hymn.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson