Classic Poem

Like some tall chieftain left alone,
When all his race is dead,
High o'er the ever-murmuring sea,
Crag-fastened firm, the old Pine Tree
Still lifts his hoary head.

The kingly qualities that made
His fallen fathers grand,
In him with triple force are set,
Lord of a ravaged realm, but yet,
A monarch in the land!

Their sturdiness of heart and blood,
And iron-fibred limb,
With all their aggregated strength,
Down lessening lines descend at length,
To culminate in him!

Unfaint he takes the summer sun,
Or wrestles with the gale,
When the hoarse tempest chafes the main,
And hail stones rain, like frozen grain,
From Winter's iron flail!

Religions, empires, centuries,
Decay and rise again;
The world rolls on, and fortunes strange,
Of chance and accident, and change,
Disturb the ways of men;

Unmoved above the shifting scene,
He stands serene, sublime,
Clothed with enduring powers to mock
The heaving frost, the earthquake's shock,
And hardly touched by time!