Classic Poem

Two trees, amid whose leafy shade
The warbling birds their vigils paid,
Stood neighbours — each as noble tree
In height and girth as one might see.
The one, sequestered in the vale,
All sheltered from the boisterous gale,
Had passed his days in soft repose;
The other from the cliff arose,
And bore the brunt of stormy wind
That lashed him oft in frenzy blind.

A day there happed when from the north
Aquilon drave his forces forth,
And hurled them headlong on the rock
Where, proudly poised to meet the shock,
Our bold tree stood. In gallant might,
He took the gage of proffered fight,
And though in every fibre wrung,
Kept every fibre still upstrung.

— Thou tremblest! — cried the sheltered tree,
— Thine own the folly! Come to me.
Here no wild tempest rocks our boughs —
Scarce may it bend our haughty brows —
Scarce may a breeze our branches kiss —
From every harm a shelter this. —

No word replied the storm-tried tree,
But, wrestling for the mastery,
He bowed and straightened, writhed and shook,
And firmer of the rock he took
A tightening clutch with grip of steel,
Nor once the storm-fiend made him reel;
And when his weary foe passed by,
Still towered he proudly to the sky.

Then through the vale the wingèd blast
For the first time in fury passed,
As through ripe grain the sickles go,
Widespread he scattered fear and woe;
Prone fell the tree — so safe before —
'Mid ruin dire, to rise no more.

He cannot fall who knows to fight
With stern adversity aright.
But soon is laid the victim low,
That knows not how to ward a blow.