The Woodman's heart is in his work, His axe is sharp and good: With sturdy arm and steady aim He smites the gaping wood; From distant rocks His lusty knocks Re-echo many a rood.

His axe is keen, his arm is strong; The muscles serve him well; His years have reach'd an extra span, The number none can tell; But still his lifelong task has been The Timber Tree to fell.

Through Summer's parching sultriness, And Winter's freezing cold, From sapling youth To virile growth.

And Age's rigid mould, His energetic axe hath rung Within that Forest old.

Aloft, upon his poising steel The vivid sunbeams glance-- About his head and round his feet The forest shadows dance; And bounding from his russet coat The acorn drops askance.

His face is like a Druid's face, With wrinkles furrow'd deep, And tann'd by scorching suns as brown As corn that's ripe to reap; But the hair on brow, and cheek, and chin, Is white as wool of sheep.

His frame is like a giant's frame; His legs are long and stark; His arms like limbs of knotted yew; His hands like rugged bark; So he felleth still With right good will, As if to build an Ark!

Oh! well within _His_ fatal path The fearful Tree might quake Through every fibre, twig, and leaf, With aspen tremor shake; Through trunk and root, And branch and shoot, A low complaining make!

Oh! well to _Him_ the Tree might breathe A sad and solemn sound, A sigh that murmur'd overhead, And groans from underground; As in that shady Avenue Where lofty Elms abound!

But calm and mute the Maple stands, The Plane, the Ash, the Fir, The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch, Without the least demur; And e'en the Aspen's hoary leaf Makes no unusual stir.

The Pines--those old gigantic Pines, That writhe--recalling soon The famous Human Group that writhes With Snakes in wild festoon-- In ramous wrestlings interlaced A Forest Laocoon--

Like Titans of primeval girth By tortures overcome, Their brown enormous limbs they twine, Bedew'd with tears of gum-- Fierce agonies that ought to yell, But, like the marble, dumb.

Nay, yonder blasted Elm that stands So like a man of sin, Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad To feel the Worm within-- For all that gesture, so intense, It makes no sort of din!

An universal silence reigns In rugged bark or peel, Except that very trunk which rings Beneath the biting steel-- Meanwhile the Woodman plies his axe With unrelenting zeal!

No rustic song is on his tongue, No whistle on his lips; But with a quiet thoughtfulness His trusty tool he grips, And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out The bright and flying chips.

Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint He spreads the fatal gash; Till, lo! the remnant fibres rend, With harsh and sudden crash, And on the dull resounding turf The jarring branches lash!

Oh! now the Forest Trees may sigh, The Ash, the Poplar tall, The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch, The Aspens--one and all, With solemn groan And hollow moan Lament a comrade's fall!

A goodly Elm, of noble girth, That, thrice the human span-- While on their variegated course The constant Seasons ran-- Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt, Had stood erect as Man.

But now, like mortal Man himself, Struck down by hand of God, Or heathen Idol tumbled prone Beneath th' Eternal's nod, In all its giant bulk and length It lies along the sod!

Ay, now the Forest Trees may grieve And make a common moan Around that patriarchal trunk So newly overthrown; And with a murmur recognize A doom to be their own!

The Echo sleeps: the idle axe, A disregarded tool, Lies crushing with its passive weight The toad's reputed stool-- The Woodman wipes his dewy brow Within the shadows cool.

No Zephyr stirs: the ear may catch The smallest insect-hum; But on the disappointed sense No mystic whispers come; No tone of sylvan sympathy, The Forest Trees are dumb.

No leafy noise, nor inward voice, No sad and solemn sound, That sometimes murmurs overhead, And sometimes underground; As in that shady Avenue, Where lofty Elms abound!

PART III.

The deed is done: the Tree is low That stood so long and firm; The Woodman and his axe are gone, His toil has found its term; And where he wrought the speckled Thrush Securely hunts the worm.

The Cony from the sandy bank Has run a rapid race, Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern, To seek the open space; And on its haunches sits erect To clean its furry face.

The dappled Fawn is close at hand, The Hind is browsing near,-- And on the Larch's lowest bough The Ousel whistles clear; But checks the note Within its throat, As choked with sudden fear!

With sudden fear her wormy quest The Thrush abruptly quits-- Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern The startled Cony flits; And on the Larch's lowest bough No more the Ousel sits.

With sudden fear The dappled Deer Effect a swift escape; But well might bolder creatures start, And fly, or stand agape, With rising hair, and curdled blood, To see so grim a Shape!

The very sky turns pale above; The earth grows dark beneath; The human Terror thrills with cold And draws a shorter breath-- An universal panic owns The dread approach of DEATH!

With silent pace, as shadows come, And dark as shadows be, The grisly Phantom takes his stand Beside the fallen Tree, And scans it with his gloomy eyes, And laughs with horrid glee--

A dreary laugh and desolate, Where mirth is void and null, As hollow as its echo sounds Within the hollow skull-- "Whoever laid this tree along, His hatchet was not dull!

"The human arm and human tool Have done their duty well!

But after sound of ringing axe Must sound the ringing knell; When Elm or Oak Have felt the stroke, My turn it is to fell!

"No passive unregarded tree, A senseless thing of wood, Wherein the sluggish sap ascends To swell the vernal bud-- But conscious, moving, breathing trunks That throb with living blood!

"No forest Monarch yearly clad In mantle green or brown; That unrecorded lives, and falls By hand of rustic clown-- But Kings who don the purple robe, And wear the jewell'd crown.

"Ah! little recks the Royal mind, Within his Banquet Hall, While tapers shine and Music breathes And Beauty leads the Ball,-- He little recks the oaken plank Shall be his palace wall!

"Ah, little dreams the haughty Peer, The while his Falcon flies-- Or on the blood-bedabbled turf The antler'd quarry dies-- That in his own ancestral Park The narrow dwelling lies!

"But haughty Peer and mighty King One doom shall overwhelm!

The oaken cell Shall lodge him well Whose sceptre ruled a realm-- While he, who never knew a home, Shall find it in the Elm!

"The tatter'd, lean, dejected wretch, Who begs from door to door, And dies within the cressy ditch, Or on the barren moor, The friendly Elm shall lodge and clothe That houseless man and poor!

"Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk, That lies so long and prone, With many a fallen acorn-cup, And mast, and furry cone-- This rugged trunk shall hold its share Of mortal flesh and bone!

"A Miser hoarding heaps of gold, But pale with ague-fears-- A Wife lamenting love's decay, With secret cruel tears, Distilling bitter, bitter drops From sweets of former years--

"A Man within whose gloomy mind Offence had deeply sunk, Who out of fierce Revenge's cup Hath madly, darkly drunk-- Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep Within this very trunk!

"This massy trunk that lies along, And many more must fall-- For the very knave Who digs the grave, The man who spreads the pall, And he who tolls the funeral bell, The Elm shall have them all!

"The tall abounding Elm that grows In hedgerows up and down; In field and forest, copse and park, And in the peopled town, With colonies of noisy rooks That nestle on its crown.

"And well th' abounding Elm may grow In field and hedge so rife, In forest, copse, and wooded park, And 'mid the city's strife, For, every hour that passes by Shall end a human life!"

The Phantom ends: the shade is gone; The sky is clear and bright; On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree, There glows a ruddy light; And bounding through the golden fern The Rabbit comes to bite.

The Thrush's mate beside her sits And pipes a merry lay; The Dove is in the evergreen; And on the Larch's spray The Fly-bird flutters up and down, To catch its tiny prey.

The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn Are coming up the glade; Each harmless furr'd and feather'd thing Is glad, and not afraid-- But on my sadden'd spirit still The Shadow leaves a shade.

A secret, vague, prophetic gloom, As though by certain mark I knew the fore-appointed Tree, Within whose rugged bark This warm and living frame shall find Its narrow house and dark.