Recollections

I wonder what they have done with the pine,
Where the red-breast came to sing—
With the maple, too, where the wandering vine
So wildly used to fling
Its loaded arms from bough to bough,
And if they gather the grapes there now.
I should like to know if they’ve killed the bee,
And carried away the hive;
If they’re broken the heart of my chestnut-tree,
Or left it still to survive,
And its laughing burs are showering down
Their loosened treasures of shining brown.
And there was a beautiful pond, that stood
Like an ample azure vase,
Or a mirror, embosomed in wild green wood,
For the sun to see his face.
Have they torn up its lilies to open a sluice
And let that peaceful prisoner loose?
Perhaps they have ruined the ancient oak,
That gave me its grateful shade;
And its own dead root in its bed is broke
By the plough, from its branches made;
Nor am I sure I could find the spot
Where I had my bower and my mossy grot.
And shall I go back to my first loved home
To find how all is changed,
Alone o’er those altered scenes to roam,
From my early self estranged?
Shall I bend me over the glassy brook,
No more on the face of a child to look?
No! no! for that loveliest spot upon earth
Let memory’s charm suffice!
But the spirit will long to the place of her birth
From time and its change to rise;
To soar and recover her primal bloom,
When death with his trophy has stopped at the tomb!