John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Poems of NatureThe Wood Giant
F
From Mad to Saco river,
For patriarchs of the primal wood
We sought with vain endeavor.
Are lost beyond retrieval;
This pygmy growth the axe has spared
Is not the wood primeval.
How idle are our searches
For broad-girthed maples, wide-limbed oaks,
Centennial pines and birches!
Have changed to beams and trestles;
They rest in walls, they float on seas,
They rot in sunken vessels.
Of underbrush and boulder,—
Who thinks to see its full-grown tree
Must live a century older.”
To open sunset leading,
Revealed the Anakim of pines
Our wildest wish exceeding.
Below, the lake’s green islands;
Beyond, in misty distance dim,
The rugged Northern Highlands.
Of time and change defiant!
How dwarfed the common woodland seemed,
Before the old-time giant!
Of the world’s early childhood,
Men crowned with garlands, gifts, and praise
Such monarchs of the wild-wood?
Danced through the hill grove’s spaces,
And hoary-bearded Druids found
In woods their holy places?
With Christian reverence blending,
We saw our pine-tree’s mighty arms
Above our heads extending.
Now rising, and now dying,
As erst Dodona’s priestess heard
The oak leaves prophesying.
Of one apart and mateless,
The weariness of unshared power,
The loneliness of greatness?
Your beauty and your wonder!
Blithe sparrow, sing thy summer song
His solemn shadow under!
O wind of summer, waking
For hills like these the sound of seas
On far-off beaches breaking!
Find shelter in his branches,
When winds shake down his winter snow
In silver avalanches.
The strongest need assurance,
The sigh of longing makes not less
The lesson of endurance.