I
Oak, whose mossed antiquity stands leafily ashiver,
Oldest oracles, each dawn, in earth’s ear to deliver,
Prom your whispering world of leaves, peace, peace is all
your paean;
Give me of your giant calm, the secret Dodonaean.
Boy, a gnarl’d root first strike deep in plain earth’s
homely nature
Wrestle rude blasts, lift, like me, your storm-contorted
stature.
Sun, wind, rain, your thousand-ringed millennial girth
shall sacre,
Broad to fling a hundred arms and overshade an acre.
You too vastly then, like me, tranquillity shall city,
Home the squirrel, bower for birds the million leaves of
Greenly mistletoe for man the soul’s immortal mystery,
Journal in your bark God’s day, a thousand years of
history.
2
Lonely Pine-tree on the hill, of gloom divinely solemn,
Who so tall and straight and sheer your crown of darkness
column,
Teach me, tree, your trance of strength majestically
sombre,
Gloom-worlds Atlas-like to prop nor dread but love to
umber.
High above the deep sunk vale, and high the rich flats
over,
Learn, sweet boy, to brood like me, the lonely hillside’s
lover.
There, to all winds in your top, melodiously hearken;
Let your soul gloom earnestly and to its own self darken.
Brooding such a depth austere of gloom augustly tender,
Shall the waste bleak moors inspire the wide heath bathed
in splendour:
You the cone-topped thyrsus wave of ecstasy shall
borrow,
Blackening to its tragic core where thought outshadows
sorrow.
3
Breezy Birch, who make yourself a wind-shook swaying
glory,
Throw up open arms in joy to catch the day’s bright
story,
Moonlight’s ever silvery house, all windows, ne’er a
rafter!
Give me of your sun-drunk heart, this holy blanch of
laughter.
Boy, an athlete spare like me, the mountain’s hardy
scholar,
Grow, profusion chastely curb, and rank luxuriance
collar,
Open out your boughs like mine to take the cold pure
breezes,
Every leaf a dancing gem that light’s own laughter
leases.
You like me shall toss your head in bacchanals of sunshine;
Drink, nor melancholy be to quaff the charm of moonshine.
You on splendour’s heart shall pour and every laughter
school in,
Silver bark, to drench in shine, leaf jollity to fool in.
(Manmohan Ghose)
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