enough to counteract, to some small
extent, the discouraging effect of those
doleful lamentations over the decay of
modern art to which the members of the
Dilettanti world are so clearly addicted.
The responsibility which attaches to any
one, the business of whose life it is to
discourage, is heavy. It would be a far more
profitable employment of the critic's time
and abilities, to examine in what respects
modern art has the advantage over old, and
what things the painter of the new time
can do which he of the old could not. The
humble Doer has difficulties to contend
with, of which the audacious Talker knows
nothing. It is more difficult to do ever so
little, than to talk ever so much; and the
most diminutive of Doers has the right to
take precedence of the most gigantic of
Talkers.

THE OLD TREE IN NORBURY PARK.

I.

THE POET. Come forth from thine encircling bole,
O Dryad of the Tree!
That stands upon the grassy knowle,
The pride of all the lea.

Thy home is stately to behold,
And, measured by its rings,
Has flourish'd on the breezy world
For eighteen hundred springs;

For eighteen hundred years has drunk
The balm the skies contain,
And fed its broad imperial trunk
With sunshine and the rain.

At least, so learned gardeners guess,
And prove it to themselves
By woodman's craft, and more or less
Book-knowledge from their shelves.

And if thou'st lived but half as long,
There's much thou must have seen,
Which thou couldst whisper in a song,
From all thy branches green!

Come, then; obedient to my call,
With eyes of flashing light,
Agile, and debonnaire, and tall,
And pleasant to the sight!

I'll listen, if thou wilt but talk,
And follow through thy speech
Tradition's visionary walk,
And all that histories teach.

And looking up the stream of Time,
Where bygone centuries frown,
Will strive, with arrogance sublime,
To look as far adown.

II.

THE TREE. When first I sprouted from the Earth,
Imperial Rome was young;
And ere I had a strong man's girth,
Her knell of doom had rung.

A Roman warrior planted me
On this sequestered hill;
And Rome's a dream of History,
While I am stalwart still.

Beneath my young o'erarching boughs
The Druids oft have stray'd;
And painted Britons breathed their vows,
Love-smitten in the shade.

When good King Alfred foil'd the Dane,
I flourished where I stand;
When Harold fell, untimely slain,
And strangers filch'd the land,

I cast my shadow on the grass,
And yearly, as I grew,
Beheld the village maidens pass
Light-footed o'er the dew.

I saw the Red Rose and the White
Do battle for the crown,
And in the sanguinary fight
Mow men like harvests down.

And as the work of Life and Death
Went on o'er all the realm,
I stood unharmed, no axe to scathe,
No flood to overwhelm.

The teeming people lived and died,
The people great and free;
And years, like ripples on the tide,
Flowed downwards to the sea,

Yet seemed to me, outlasting all,
To leave their work behind,
And make their notches, great and small,
Of progress for mankind;

Though oft the growth of happier time
Seemed slow and sorely wrought,
And noble actions failed to climb
The heights of noble Thought.

But let me be of hopeful speech!
I feel that Time shall bring
To men and nations, all and each,
The renovating spring!

III.

THE POET. Well said, old Tree! We'll look before,
And seek not to recall
The stories of the days of yore,
So melancholy all.

Ah no! we'll rather strive to think,
If yet, five hundred years,
Thou'rt left to stand upon the brink,
Amid thy younger peers,

What thoughts and deeds, both linked in birth,
Shall work to mighty ends,
Amid the nations of the Earth,
The foemen and the friends;

What changes Fate shall slowly launch
On Time's unresting river;
What little germs take root and branch,
And flourish green for ever;

What struggling nations shall be great,
What great ones shall be small,
Or whether Europe, courting Fate,
Shall crumble to its fall.

Perchance, if any chance there be
In God's eternal plan,
There may evolve new History,
And nobler life for man.

Such hopes be ours—the high, the deep,
O Spirit of the Tree!
And yet, I think, I'd like to sleep
For centuries two or three,

To learn, when wakened into light,
What marvels had been done
Since I had bidden Time good-night,
And quarrel'd with the sun:

To learn if England, growing yet,
Still held her ancient place;
Or if her brilliant star had set
In splendour or disgrace:

To learn if Empire travelling West,
Beyond old Ocean's links,
Had marched from Better into Best,
And riddled out the Sphynx;