No murmur of the gusty sea,
  No tumult of the beach,
However they may foam and fret,
  The bounded sense could reach—­
Methought the trees in mystic tongue
  Were talking each to each!—­

Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales
  Of greenwood love or guilt,
    Of whisper’d vows
    Beneath their boughs;
  Or blood obscurely spilt,
Or of that near-hand Mansion House
  A royal Tudor built.

Perchance, of booty won or shared
  Beneath the starry cope—­
Or where the suicidal wretch
  Hung up the fatal rope;
Or Beauty kept an evil tryste,
  Insnared by Love and Hope.

Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop’d
  At midnight dark and dank—­
And what is underneath the sod
  Whereon the grass is rank—­
    Of old intrigues,
    And privy leagues,
  Tradition leaves in blank.

Of traitor lips that mutter’d plots—­
  Of Kin who fought and fell—­
God knows the undiscovered schemes,
  The arts and acts of Hell,
Perform’d long generations since,
  If trees had tongues to tell!

With wary eyes, and ears alert,
  As one who walks afraid,
I wander’d down the dappled path
  Of mingled light and shade—­
How sweetly gleam’d that arch of blue
  Beyond the green arcade!

How cheerily shone the glimpse of Heav’n
  Beyond that verdant aisle! 
All overarch’d with lofty elms,
  That quench’d the light, the while,
    As dim and chill
    As serves to fill
Some old Cathedral pile!

And many a gnarled trunk was there,
  That ages long had stood,
Till Time had wrought them into shapes
  Like Pan’s fantastic brood;
Or still more foul and hideous forms
  That Pagans carve in wood!

A crouching Satyr lurking here—­
  And there a Goblin grim—­
As staring full of demon life
  As Gothic sculptor’s whim—­
A marvel it had scarcely been
  To hear a voice from him!

Some whisper from that horrid mouth
  Of strange, unearthly tone;
Or wild infernal laugh, to chill
  One’s marrow in the bone. 
But no—­it grins like rigid Death,
  And silent as a stone!

As silent as its fellows be,
  For all is mute with them—­
The branch that climbs the leafy roof—­
The rough and mossy stem—­
    The crooked root,
    And tender shoot,
  Where hangs the dewy gem.

One mystic Tree alone there is,
  Of sad and solemn sound—­
That sometimes murmurs overhead,
  And sometimes underground—­
In all that shady Avenue,
  Where lofty Elms abound.

PART II.

The Scene is changed!  No green Arcade,
  No Trees all ranged a-row—­
But scatter’d like a beaten host,
  Dispersing to and fro;
With here and there a sylvan corse,
  That fell before the foe.

The Foe that down in yonder dell
  Pursues his daily toil;
As witness many a prostrate trunk,
  Bereft of leafy spoil,
Hard by its wooden stump, whereon
  The adder loves to coil.