The Pine Tree

Before your atoms came together

I was full-grown, a tower of strength,

Seen by the sailors out at sea,

With great storms measuring all my length,

Making my mighty minstrelsy,

Companion of the ancient weather.

Yours! Just as much the stars that shiver

When the frost sparkles overhead!

Call yours as soon those viewless airs

That sing in the clear vault, and tread

The clouds! Less yours than theirs—

The fish-hawks swooping round the river!

In the primeval depths, embowering

My broad boughs with my branching peers,

My gums I spilled in precious drops—

Ay, even in those elder years

The eagle building in my tops,

Along my boughs the panther cowering.

Beneath my shade the red man slipping,

Himself a shadow, stole away;

A paler shadow follows him!

Races may go, or races stay,

The cones upon my loftiest limb

The winds will many a year be stripping;

And there the hidden day be throwing

His fires, though dark the dead prime be

Before the bird shake off the dew.

Ah! what songs have been sung to me;

What songs will yet be sung, when you

Are dust upon the four winds blowing!