Year: 1877

FOR the Ledger.
Written Upon u Decaying For"


est Tree.
Poor lifeless tree, how solemn now You


look;
But Yesterday it was yonr bdsst to rear
On high this trunk above thy fellows


heads
TO catch the earliest beams OF rising sun.
Or pierce the lowering cloud and hail the


blast
That shook for centuries the forest kings,
To ride triumphant DER. Bat yesterday
Thy tortuous roots did pierce the mellow


earth,
And with a sound aud vigorous appetite
Did cast thy fbres, like dredge, around
To suck by subtle mouths thy raricd


strength,
And pump it thro' thy numerous pores and
Along thy frame and branch, till outer
Did equal health restore. Then did the


peers
Who circled round thy feet and knew thee


great,
Think, also, thee ambitious. as the State
The statesman thinks, whose talent bait-


alone.
But now change is wrought Has Death


been here
To visit and to strip thy living strength
Thy grace among the silence Of the glades
Thy beauty in fair cnmpanionship?
hath AS life was; but none-no farther


Death;
Like mine poor soul created but to die;
IT'S but change that Nature may pre-
4 sweet correlative in all her ways,
And keep her work circle and whole.
Years ere vou fell secret hand did creep
Eea from your prime to work to-dav's et


feet.
And everv member did anticipate
The modlfer and the varied means
Bv which the links of Alpha to the snow
Did Join themselves, exacting snoh and


such,
To meet exppdience and the final plan
Determined by remote, untatho med cau-e
Leaves. where are they? Upon the earth


cold floor
In clotted heaps, and left to rot are they?
If so, what is the rot? Are we to say
Because in one condition we might find
A piece of nature thus, not customed with
Our ideas of life, the thing is dead?
The petal of the rose the leaf of oak,
When time is full and when the varied


blowth
On Autumn heath shakes off the tender


thread.
And falls nbedient to a gentle hand
From each respective hinge to lap"f earth
They then are dead? l think of but 8


change,
Which metamorphosed life into state
OF living vet less known, see the leaves
In swift decomposition take the shape
5v agencies as many rs are wide
OF divers things, and settling down the
Work in stagnant andFa silent mode;
To cast embrvos into fitted mould
To pear to man when mans ideas it.
! -, there's time hen from the WON'T


again
O! earth shall spring to meet the breathing


air
r9le powdered carc.ss of mis- no'1t1 tree
And all lis parts; but none shall kno" tht


rest,
80 greatly changed to aut All Office there
In wavs unseen, ard MANY windy mode
Unlike to me. The leaves which no" are


hid
Beneath this svrtis log = lhis pu;rioi core,
Shall weave into the gfas-.s ot the scrow
10 peep soon DER the surface ot the ground
And make the peat to feel the peasants
Or deeper sink and form for ages hence
4 medicinal saIve, and oil, and pitch,
And diamond coal to deck the head OF


science
And list her thro' her long, meandering


way.
Mine shall go down when I am bid to go
And straight resolve into the common dust
To spend abroad. until that awful day,
When every mote is mustered in the flesh
Then resurrect unspotted aud entire
No longer Nature then empowered to


sway
Into the bosom Of my Maker, God.


Leroy