The Charter Oak.

I seem to see the old tree stand,         Its sturdy, giant form     A spectacle remembered, and     A pilgrim-shrine for all the land         Before it met the storm.     Unnumbered gales the tree defied;         It towered like a king     Above his courtiers, reaching wide,     And sheltering scions at its side         As with protecting wing.     Revered as one among the trees         To mark the seasons born,     To watchful aborigines     It told by leafy indices         The time of planting corn.     The landmark of the past is gone,         Its site is overgrown;     A mansion overlooks the lawn     Where history is traced upon         A parapet of stone.     Shall e'er Connecticut forget         What unto it we owe -     How Wadsworth coped with Andros' threat,     And tyranny, in council met,         Outwitted years ago?     Aye, but it rouses loyal spunk         To think of that old tree!     Its stately stem, its spacious trunk     By Nature robbed of pith and punk         To guard our liberty.     But of the oak long-perished, why         Is earth forever full?     For, like the loaf and fish supply,     Its stock of fiber, tough and dry,         Seems inexhaustible.     Rare souvenirs the stranger sees -         Who never sees a joke -     And innocently dreams that these,     From knotty, gnarly, scraggy trees,         Were once the Charter Oak!