Page:A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (3rd ed.).djvu/142



years at least, had seen This Monarch Elm on Norton Green; The noisy rooks its boughs among, Had built their nests and reared their young; The sparrows claimed a vested right To chirrup on its topmost height; The starling, in its hollow arm, Had built, for years, its nest so warm. (Though, lying useless, all around Was lots of fitting vacant ground), The poor old tree was doomed to fall, And rooks and starlings banished all. It was a pity, for this tree Formed part of Norton's history. Grey-headed men would speak, with glee, Of boyhood's sports beneath that tree; And crones, grown garrulous, would tell How early swains had tried to spell Their rude initials on its bark, And show, or try to show, the mark. Could it have told—that nature's child,