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...FRAGMENT ON DEATH by FRANCOIS VILLON THE TASK: BOOK 4. THE WINTER EVENING by WILLIAM COWPER SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE: 2. IN CHURCH by THOMAS HARDY SONNETS TO LAURA IN LIFE: 109 by PETRARCH THE WOUND-DRESSER by WALT WHITMAN |