“This massy trunk that lies along,
  And many more must fall—­
    For the very knave
    Who digs the grave,
  The man who spreads the pall,
And he who tolls the funeral bell,
  The Elm shall have them all!

“The tall abounding Elm that grows
  In hedgerows up and down;
In field and forest, copse and park,
  And in the peopled town,
With colonies of noisy rooks
  That nestle on its crown.

“And well th’ abounding Elm may grow
  In field and hedge so rife,
In forest, copse, and wooded park,
  And ’mid the city’s strife,
For, every hour that passes by
  Shall end a human life!”

The Phantom ends:  the shade is gone;
  The sky is clear and bright;
On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree,
  There glows a ruddy light;
And bounding through the golden fern
  The Rabbit comes to bite.

The Thrush’s mate beside her sits
  And pipes a merry lay;
The Dove is in the evergreen;
  And on the Larch’s spray
The Fly-bird flutters up and down,
  To catch its tiny prey.

The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn
  Are coming up the glade;
Each harmless furr’d and feather’d thing
  Is glad, and not afraid—­
But on my sadden’d spirit still
  The Shadow leaves a shade.

A secret, vague, prophetic gloom,
  As though by certain mark
I knew the fore-appointed Tree,
  Within whose rugged bark
This warm and living frame shall find
  Its narrow house and dark.

That mystic Tree which breathed to me
  A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur’d overhead,
  And sometimes underground;
Within that shady Avenue
  Where lofty Elms abound.

LEAR.

A poor old king, with sorrow for my crown,
Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind—­
For pity, my own tears have made me blind
That I might never see my children’s frown;
And, may be, madness, like a friend, has thrown
A folded fillet over my dark mind,
So that unkindly speech may sound for kind—­
Albeit I know not.—­I am childish grown—­
And have not gold to purchase wit withal—­
I that have once maintain’d most royal state—­
A very bankrupt now that may not call
My child, my child—­all beggar’d save in tears,
Wherewith I daily weep an old man’s fate,
Foolish—­and blind—­and overcome with years!

SONNET.

My heart is sick with longing, tho’ I feed
On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace,
As if he slept—­forgetting his old speed: 
For, as in sunshine only we can read
The march of minutes on the dial’s face,
So in the shadows of this lonely place
There is no love, and Time is dead indeed. 
But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart,
Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies,
It seems we only meet to tear apart,
With aching hands and lingering of eyes. 
Alas, alas! that we must learn hours’ flight
By the same light of love that makes them bright!