And in her humour, when she frown'd, The other was of gentler cast, Her frowns were seldom known to last, To poets of renown in song The nymphs referr'd the cause, They gentle call'd, and kind and soft, And though she changed her mood so oft, No judges, sure, were e'er so mad, In short, the charms her sister had Then thus the God whom fondly they Was heard, one genial summer's day, "Since thus ye have combined," he said, 66 My favourite nymph to slight, Adorning May, that peevish maid, "The minx shall, for your folly's sake, Still prove herself a shrew, Shall make your scribbling fingers ache, May, 1791. YARDLEY OAK. SURVIVOR Sole, and hardly such, of all As now, Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine, Thou wast a bauble once, a cup and ball Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down Thy yet close folded latitude of boughs Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through. Thou fell'st mature; and, in the loamy clod And, all the elements thy puny growth Fostering propitious, thou becamest a twig. Who lived when thou wast such? Oh, couldst thou speak, As in Dodona once thy kindred trees The future, best unknown, but, at thy mouth By thee I might correct, erroneous oft, Time made thee what thou wast, king of the woods; And time hath made thee what thou art—a cave For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs O'erhung the champaign; and the numerous flocks That grazed it stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe shelter'd from the storm. No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outlived Thy popularity, and art become (Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth. While thus through all the stages thou hast push'd Of treeship-first a seedling, hid in grass; Then twig; then sapling; and, as century roll'd Slow after century, a giant bulk Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root Upheaved above the soil, and sides emboss'd With prominent wens globose-till at the last The rottenness, which time is charged to inflict On other mighty ones, found also thee. What exhibitions various hath the world That we account most durable below! In all that live, plant, animal, and man, And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads, Fine passing thought, e'en in their coarsest works, Delight in agitation, yet sustain The force that agitates not unimpair'd ; But worn by frequent impulse, to the cause Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still The great and little of thy lot, thy growth From almost nullity into a state Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence, Slow, into such magnificent decay. Time was when, settling on thy leaf, a fly Could shake thee to the root-and time has been When tempests could not. At thy firmest age Of some flagg'd admiral; and tortuous arms, * Knee-timber is found in the crooked arms of oak, which, by reason of their distortion, are easily adjusted to the angle formed where the deck and the ship's sides meet, |