Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/121

Rh

's warfare on the trees is terrible. He lifts his rude hut in the wilderness, And lo! the loftiest trunks, that age on age We're nurtured to nobility, and bore Their summer coronets so gloriously, Fall with a thunder-sound, to rise no more. He toucheth flame unto them, and they lie A blackened wreck, their tracery and wealth Of sky-fed emerald, madly spent to feed An arch of brilliance for a single night, And scaring thence the wild deer and the fox, And the lithe squirrel from the nut-strewn home, So long enjoyed. He lifts his puny arm, And every echo of the axe doth hew The iron heart of centuries away. He entereth boldly to the solemn groves On whose green altar-tops, since time was young, The winged birds have poured their incense strain Of praise and love, within whose mighty nave The wearied cattle from a thousand hills