C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Holly-Tree
By Robert Southey (17741843)
O
The Holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound the Atheist’s sophistries.
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree
Can emblem see
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,—
Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
So bright and green,
The Holly leaves a sober hue display
Less bright than they,
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?—
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.