Caroline Clive

The Crab Tree

A BANK rose high above a rill,
Whose wave through breeze-stirr'd branches quiver;
Its careless sound came up the hill
Increasing, lessening, for ever.

Upon the bank a crab tree grew,
All pink and white with crowds of flowers;
Uncounted birds, unnumbered bees,
Took pleasure in those perfumed bowers.

And I rejoiced while this might last,
To feed and fill mine eye and ear;
'Twas not a future joy, nor past,
But I was happy then and there.

That untrain'd tree no fruit would bear
That any hand would pluck for food;
'Twas only bright, 'twas only fair,
Gemming the upland solitude.

Scenes grander far I've left behind,
Hours I have spent of nobler rank,
But many such escape my mind,
While memory keeps that tree and bank.

Again I turned when May came round,
The flowers, the birds, the bees to see:
But where I sought them, on the ground
There lay cut down the sweet crab tree.

T'was pity of the tree, I thought;
Why not have spared its pleading grace?
Some pelf its fall might bring, dear bought
By beauty banish'd from the place.

The oak is fell'd to build a town,
The pine a war-ship's mast to be;
But why so carelessly cut down
The lovely, useless, sweet crab tree?