James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
January 15Everett
By Thomas William Parsons (18191892)S
On that proud pedestal, a people’s heart—
As when some image, through the touch of time,
That long was reverenced in the public mart;
As some tall clock-tower, that was wont to tell
The hour of duty to the young and olden,
With tongue most musical of every bell,
Bends to its base, and is no more beholden!
Lord of the grove, but something set apart,
That all the tempests could not overwhelm,
Nor all the winters of his seventy years,
But on some peaceful midnight bursts his heart.
And in the morning men behold the wreck,
(Some with gray hairs, who cannot hold their tears),
But in the giant timber find no speck
Nor unsound spot, but only wholesome wood.
The stem that ever seemed so fair and good;
And aged men that knew the tree of yore
When but a sapling, promising full well,
Say to each other, “This majestic plant
Came to its full growth; it made no idle vaunt;
From its own weight, without a flaw, it fell!”