Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
V. Trees: Flowers: PlantsThe Holly-Tree
Robert Southey (17741843)O
The holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves
Ordered by an intelligence so wise
As might confound the atheist’s sophistries.
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle, through their prickly round,
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the holly-tree
Can emblems see
Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
Harsh and austere;
To those who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude;
Gentle at home amid my friends I ’d be,
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I, day by day,
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
So bright and green,
The holly-leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the holly-tree?
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they;
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly-tree.