THERE is a mighty, magic tree, That holds the round earth and the sea In its branches like a net: Its immortal trunk is set Broader than the tide of night With its star-tipped billows bright: Human thought doth on it grow, Like the barren mistletoe On an old oak's forehead-skin. Ever while the planets spin Their blue existence, that great plant Shall not bud nor blossom want; Summer, winter, night and day, It must still its harvest pay; Ever while the night grows up Along the wall of the wide sky, And the thunder-bee sweeps by, On its brown, wet wing, to dry Every day-star's crystal cup Of its yellow summer:—still At the foot of heaven's hill, With fruit and blossom flush and rife, Stays that tree of Human Life. Let us mark yon newest bloom Heaving through the leafy gloom; Now a pinkish bud it grows Scentless, bloomless; slow unclose Its outer pages to the sun, Opened, but not yet begun. Its first leaf is infancy, Pencilled pale and tenderly, Smooth its cheek and mild its eye: Now it swells, and curls its head,— Little infancy is shed. Broader childhood is the next— . . . . . | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPIGRAM: HERO AND LEANDER by JOHN DONNE THYESTES, ACT 2: CHORUS by LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA THE LONG HILL by SARA TEASDALE DOVE RIVER ANTHOLOGY, BY OWN WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: LUCY GRAY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS DRINKING SONG (2) by ALCAEUS OF MYTILENE TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED by MATTHEW ARNOLD |