POETRY.
COMPTON PLACE.
FAIR beeches, though your brother trees In forests stand so proud, Yet here the fierce winds from the seas So oft your heads have bowed,
That still, when softer airs prevail, Your tops seem bending from the gale.
With salt dews from the sea-foam wet, By many a tempest torn, - Scarred trunks and twisted limbs show yet What terrors ye have borne ; Nor any years can now undo What the past years have done to you.
Yet, when the Spring is in the land, And bright the heaven o'erhead, In sullen gloom ye will not stand, Though life's best hopes be dead ; New leaves break forth from buds unseen, Till all the wood is clothed in green.
Fair souls, that from your high intent By bitter fate are barred, Though past all hope your lives be bent, And past all healing scarred ;
Yet learn of these, to do as they,—
Not what ye would, but what ye may ! F. W. B.
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