Classic Poem

Tree of the gloom, o'erhanging the tomb,
Thou seem'st to love the churchyard sod;
Thou ever art found on the charnel ground,
Where the laughing and happy have rarely trod,
When thy branches trail to the wintry gale,
Thy wailing is sad to the hearts of men:
When the world is bright in a summer's light,
'Tis only the wretched that love thee then.
The golden moth and the shining bee
Will seldom rest on the willow-tree.

The weeping maid comes under thy shade,
Mourning her faithful lover dead;
She sings of his grave in the crystal wave,
Of his sea-weed shroud and coral bed.
A chaplet she weaves of thy downy leaves,
And twines it round her pallid brow;
Sleep falls on her eyes while she softly sighs,
“My love, my dearest, I come to thee now”
She sits and dreams of the moaning sea,
While the night wind creeps through the willow-tree.

The dying one will turn from the sun,
The dazzling flowers, and luscious fruit,
To set his mark in thy sombre bark,
And find a couch at thy moss-clad root.
He is fading away like the twilight ray,
His cheek is pale and his glance is dim;
But thy drooping arms, with their pensive charms,
Can yield a joy till the last for him;
And the latest words on his lips shall be,
“Oh, bury me under the willow-tree!”