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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE DEAD OAK. A Lawny glade within a forest's heart, A chamber in the palace of great Pan, Enfolds me; oh! the pomp of circling hills ! Clouds of wide foliage hanging mass on mass O'er living timber columns numberless: Grey, golden, ruddy?gorgeous in the wealth Of their autumnal pageantry of tints, Like thunder-clouds in sunset's fading light. For Autumn, like a vagrant gipsy queen Of tawny brow, who charms away green leaves Upon her path, had o'er the plaited crowns Of the stern forest-kings her highway made, Mutt'ring prophetic spells of palmistry; A herald wild of Winter and Decay. But one tree in that still, embosom'd glade, Like one forlorn among a multitude, What now to it are Summer's braveries, Or Autumn's tints, or Winter's withering gripe ? Spring may renew its brethren's verdant robes, And milky sap suckle their nippling buds, But thai tree's vital stream?it flows no more! Alas ! that tree?that hollow, heartless tree ! It only stands with naked, spectral arms Silently pointing into heaven's depth. Summer arrays the forest one green realm; But that tree in it, leafless, bare and lone, Doth stand unchanging, pointing into heaven. Autumn and Winter o'er the woodlands reign; When, like grey memories of youthful dreams, Wo trample withered 'neath our feet the leaves Which triumphed overhead all summer-tide; While stand their parents spreading naked arms Above them, perishing around their feet. But this one tree?this hollow, heartless tree, Where now its foliage to fade and fall ? It stands unchanging?pointing into heaven. The same 'neath summer's sun and winter's storm, Neither can bid it bloom or blight it more. Yet once it spread, like its compeers around, A bowery labyrinth of limbs and leaves: One of the mighty living pillars reared T...