The world is with me, and its many cares, Its woes--its wants--the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs-- The shades of former and of future years-- Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit that was once elate:-- Heavens! what a wilderness the earth appears, Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of date! But no--a laugh of innocence and joy Resounds, like music of the fairy race, And gladly turning from the world's annoy I gaze upon a little radiant face, And bless, internally, the merry boy Who "makes a _son-shine_ in a shady-place." THE ELM TREE. A DREAM IN THE WOODS. "And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees."--_As You Like It_. 'Twas in a shady Avenue, Where lofty Elms abound-- And from a Tree There came to me A sad and solemn sound, That sometimes murmur'd overhead, And sometimes underground. Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh, Amid the boughs to moan; It mutter'd in the stem, and then The roots took up the tone; As if beneath the dewy grass The dead began to groan. No breeze there was to stir the leaves; No bolts that tempests launch, To rend the trunk or rugged bark; No gale to bend the branch; No quake of earth to heave the roots, That stood so stiff and staunch. No bird was preening up aloft, To rustle with its wing; No squirrel, in its sport or fear. From bough to bough to spring. The solid bole Had ne'er a hole To hide a living thing! No scooping hollow cell to lodge A furtive beast or fowl, The martin, bat, Or forest cat That nightly loves to prowl, Nor ivy nooks so apt to shroud The moping, snoring owl. But still the sound was in my ear, A sad and solemn sound, That sometimes murmur'd overhead, And sometimes underground-- 'Twas in a shady Avenue Where lofty Elms abound. Oh hath the Dryad still a tongue In this ungenial clime? Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice As in the classic prime-- To make the forest voluble, As in the olden time? The olden time is dead and gone; Its years have fill'd their sum-- And e'en in Greece--her native Greece-- The Sylvan Nymph is dumb-- From ash, and beech, and aged oak, No classic whispers come, From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch, And fragrant Linden Trees; No living sound E'er hovers round, Unless the vagrant breeze, The music of the merry bird, Or hum of busy bees. But busy bees forsake the Elm That bears no bloom aloft-- The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush, The Blackbird in the croft; And among the firs the brooding Dove, That else might murmur soft. Yet still I heard that solemn sound, And sad it was to boot, From ev'ry overhanging bough, And each minuter shoot; From rugged trunk and mossy rind, And from the twisted root.