Landon in The Literary Gazette 1830/The Aspen Tree
12
Literary Gazette, 21st August, 1830, Page 548
THE ASPEN TREE.
The quiet of the evening hour
Was laid on every summer leaf;
That purple shade was on each flower,
At once so beautiful, so brief,
Only the aspen knew not rest,
But still, with an unquiet song,
Kept murmuring to the gentle west,
And cast a changeful shade along.
Not for its beauty—other trees
Had greener boughs, and statelier stem;
And those had fruit, and blossoms these,
Yet still I chose this tree from them.
'Tis a strange thing, this depth of love
Which dwells within the human heart;
From earth below to heaven above,
In each, in all, it fain has part.
It must find sympathy, or make;
And hence beliefs, the fond, the vain,
The thousand shapes that fancies take,
To bind the fine connecting chain.
We plant pale flowers beside the tomb,
And love to see them droop and fade;
For every leaf that sheds its bloom
Seems like a natural tribute paid.
Thus Nature soothes the grief she shares:
What are the flowers we hold most dear?
The one whose haunted beauty wears
The sign of human thought or tear.
Why hold the violet and rose
A place within the heart, denied
To fairer foreign flowers, to those
To earlier memories allied?
Like those frail leaves, each restless thought
Fluctuates in my weary mind;
Uncertain tree! my fate was wrought
In the same loom where thine was twined.
And thus from other trees around
Did I still watch the aspen tree,
Because in its unrest I found
Somewhat of sympathy with me.
L. E. L.