And here's your letter _debonnaire_! "_My friend, my dear old friend of yore_," And is this curl your daughter's hair? I've seen the Titian tint before. Are we that pair who used to pass Long days beneath the chesnuts shady? You then were such a pretty lass!-- I'm told you're now as fair a lady. I've laughed to hide the tear I shed, As when the Jester's bosom swells, And mournfully he shakes his head, We hear the jingle of his bells. A jesting vein your poet vexed, And this poor rhyme, the Fates determine, Without a parson, or a text, Has proved a somewhat prosy sermon. THE OLD OAK-TREE AT HATFIELD BROADOAK. A mighty growth! The county side Lamented when the Giant died, For England loves her trees: What misty legends round him cling! How lavishly he once did fling His acorns to the breeze! To strike a thousand roots in fame, To give the district half its name, The fiat could not hinder; Last spring he put forth one green bough,-- The red leaves hang there still,--but now His very props are tinder. Elate, the thunderbolt he braved, Long centuries his branches waved A welcome to the blast; An oak of broadest girth he grew, And woodman never dared to do What Time has done at last. The monarch wore a leafy crown, And wolves, ere wolves were hunted down, Found shelter at his foot; Unnumbered squirrels gambolled free, Glad music filled the gallant tree From stem to topmost shoot. And it were hard to fix the tale Of when he first peered forth a frail Petitioner for dew; No Saxon spade disturbed his root, The rabbit spared the tender shoot, And valiantly he grew, And showed some inches from the ground When Saint Augustine came and found Us very proper Vandals: When nymphs owned bluer eyes than hose, When England measured men by blows, And measured time by candles. Worn pilgrims blessed his grateful shade Ere Richard led the first crusade, And maidens led the dance Where, boy and man, in summer-time, Sweet Chaucer pondered o'er his rhyme; And Robin Hood, perchance, Stole hither to maid Marian, (And if they did not come, one can At any rate suppose it); They met beneath the mistletoe,-- We did the same, and ought to know The reason why they chose it. And this was called the traitor's branch,-- Stern Warwick hung six yeomen stanch Along its mighty fork; Uncivil wars for them! The fair Red rose and white still bloom,--but where Are Lancaster and York? Right mournfully his leaves he shed To shroud the graves of England's dead, By English falchion slain; And cheerfully, for England's sake, He sent his kin to sea with Drake, When Tudor humbled Spain.