Putatis Lucum Ligna Poem by Philip Henry Savage

YE seem intent to stand alone
Monarchs, ye men, of stock and stone;
The forest dead and everywhere
Untenanted the fields of air.
To view a wood unwilling, ye
Who for the timber hate the tree!
Will ye cast nature from her throne
And waste the earth you call your own?
Descending from the Lincoln hills
I came where join the Woodstock rills;
Across the east a smoky veil
Lets not, or day or night, to trail
Words dire in meaning, seen before
By Dante on the infernal door!
For pant of engines on the air
Shatters the mountain silence where
Five-throated, bound with iron bands,
The havoc of the forest stands!

Where man has conquered nature dies
From out her own familiar skies,
And nature loves her child;
'T is nature loves the running brooks,
Not man but nature guards the nooks
From which they are beguiled.
Infinite labor gives them birth,
The rocks, the deeps below the earth,
And dusky shadows bring them forth
As weak as they are wild.
The earth will, all in little room
Become a garden, then a tomb;
Then keep it while ye may
A little wild, where we may see
The unthreatened glory of a tree,
And feel the fountain's spray.
Reserve one spot where we may find
An untamed accent in the wind;
And beds of moss unbroken, where
To mark the footprint of the bear;
One stream of water mountain-pure
Wherein the wild trout may endure
And the wild deer may drink and bathe secure!