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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408425" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Wail in the Native Oak</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Where the lone creek, chafing nightly in the cold and sad moonshine,<br>Beats beneath the twisted fern-roots and the drenched and dripping vine;<br>Where the gum trees, ringed and ragged, from the mazy margins rise,<br>Staring out against the heavens with their languid gaping eyes;<br>There I listened - there I heard it! Oh, that melancholy sound,<br>Wandering like a ghostly whisper, through the dreaming darkness round!<br>Wandering, like a fearful warning, where the withered twilight broke<br>Through a mass of mournful tresses, drooping down the Native Oak.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And I caught a glimpse of sunset fading from a far-off wild,<br>As I sat me down to fancy, like a thoughtful, wistful child -<br>Sat me down to fancy what might mean those hollow, hopeless tones,<br>Sooming round the swooning silence, dying out in smothered moans!<br>What might mean that muffled sobbing? Did a lonely phantom wail,<br>Pent amongst those tangled branches barring out the moonlight pale?<br>Wept it for that gleam of glory wasting from the forest aisles;<br>For that fainting gleam of glory sad with flickering, sickly smiles?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In these woodlands I was restless! I had seen a light depart,<br>And an ache for something vanished filled and chilled my longing heart,<br>And I linked my thoughts together - 'All seemed still and dull to-day,<br>But a painful symbol groweth from the shine that pales away!<br>This may not be idle dreaming; if the spirit roams,' I said,<br>'This is surely one, a wanderer from the ages which have fled!<br>Who can look beyond the darkness; who can see so he may tell<br>Where the sunsets all have gone to; where the souls that leave us dwell?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'This might be a loving exile, full with faded thoughts returned,<br>Seeking for familiar faces, friends for whom he long had yearned.<br>Here his fathers must have sojourned - here his people may have died,<br>Or, perchance, to distant forests all were scattered far and wide.<br>So he moans and so he lingers! weeping o'er the wasted wild;<br>Weeping o'er the desolation, like a lost, benighted child!<br>So he moans, and so he lingers! Hence these fitful, fretful sighs,<br>Deep within the oak tree solemn! Hence these weary, weary cries!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Or who knows but that some secret lies beneath yon dismal mound?<br>Ha! a dreary, dreadful secret must be buried underground!<br>Not a ragged blade of verdure - not one root of moss is there;<br>Who hath torn the grasses from it - wherefore is that barrow bare?<br>Darkness shuts the forest round me. Here I stand and, O my God!<br>This may be some injured spirit raving round and round the sod.<br>Hush! the tempest, how it travels! Blood hath here been surely shed -<br>Hush! the thunder, how it mutters! Oh, the unrequited Dead!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Came a footfall past the water - came a wild man through the gloom,<br>Down he stooped and faced the current, silent as the silent tomb;<br>Down he stooped and lapped the ripples: not a single word he spoke,<br>But I whispered, 'He can tell me of the Secret in the Oak?<br>Very thoughtful seems that forehead; many legends he may know;<br>Many tales and old traditions linked to what is here below!<br>I must ask him - rest I cannot - though my life upon it hung -<br>Though these wails are waxing louder, I must give my thoughts a tongue.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Shake that silence from you, wild man! I have looked into your face,<br>Hoping I should learn the story there about this fearful place.<br>Slake your thirst, but stay and tell me: did your heart with terror beat,<br>When you stepped across the bare and blasted hillock at your feet?<br>Hearken to these croons so wretched deep within the dusk boughs pent!<br>Hold you not some strange tradition coupled with this strange lament?<br>When your tribe about their camp-fires hear that hollow, broken cry,<br>~Do they hint of deeds mysterious, hidden in the days gone by?~'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But he rose like one bewildered, shook his head and glided past;<br>Huddling whispers hurried after, hissing in the howling blast!<br>Now a sheet of lurid splendour swept athwart the mountain spire,<br>And a midnight squall came trumping down on zigzag paths of fire!<br>Through the tumult dashed a torrent flanking out in foaming streams,<br>Whilst the woodlands groaned and muttered like a monster vexed with dreams.<br>Then I swooned away in horror. Oh! that shriek which rent the air,<br>Like the voice of some fell demon harrowed by a mad despair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Kendall">Henry Kendall</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408425" data-title="The Wail in the Native Oak de Henry Kendall" data-description="Where the lone creek, chafing nightly in the cold and sad moonshine,
Beats beneath the twisted fern-roots and the drenched and dripping vine;
Where the gum trees, ringed and ragged, from the mazy margins rise,
Staring out against the heavens with ..."></div>
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