Shall not the phantom-axe, with viewless strokes, The quiet purlieus of your traffic vex? And the grim voice of all these aged oaks Go storming o'er your ledgers, to perplex Your clerks with sylvan horror? This fair haunt Of light and shadow, and divine repose, Low-fallen at last beneath your ruthless blows, Waits its last shame, the hammer. Do not vaunt The pelf your ravage brings you; for the ban Of all the woods is on you! you have spared No shelter for the dreams of god or man. Who stirred the wood-god's bile, what risks he ran Of old! ay, even the heedless swain, who dared To tune his pipe across the nose of Pan! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SHEEP AND LAMBS by KATHARINE TYNAN THE ETERNAL GOODNESS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER HUMAN IGNORANCE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE LAY OF ST. NICHOLAS by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM SONG ON THE WATER (1) by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |