THOU ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud With sounds of unintelligible speech, Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach, Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd; With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed, Thou speakest a different dialect to each; To me a language that no man can teach, Of a lost race, long vanished like a cloud. For underneath thy shade, in days remote, Seated like Abraham at eventide Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote His Bible in a language that hath died And is forgotten, save by thee alone. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OUR LORD AND OUR LADY by HILAIRE BELLOC CONTRA MORTEM: THE WOMAN by HAYDEN CARRUTH CACHE LA POUDRE by JAMES GALVIN STREET-CRIES: 2. THE SHIP OF EARTH by SIDNEY LANIER THE TOURNAMENT by SIDNEY LANIER THE SLAVE TRADE: VIEW FROM THE MIDDLE PASSAGE by CLARENCE MAJOR |