Killed in the forest fire, nite of Sept. 11, 1931
Lone and magnificent it stood
Upon the river’s brink,
A specimen of nature’s art,
A harmonizing link;
For human hand spared it always—
Left it to be admired
Near thirty years we watched it grow
While it in turn inspired.
None of its kin grew round about—
It was a Lone Pine Tree.
So maybe ’twas on that account
It soughed unceasingly;
Or sighed for days gone by perhaps.
As higher raised its crest
And it was forced so far away – –
Away from Mother’s breast.
Though storms & floods & lightning flash
All came within its time,
Through hoary frosts, through scorching sun,
It still appeared sublime;
And joyous birdies found a home
Among its murmuring boughs,
While underneath so placidly
Fed horses, sheep and cows.
Hard by the pine tree we have watched
Our little ones at play.
With merry games, with carefree days
A-picnicing away;
But life exacts a penalty
For which “the die is cast” for all;
From mortal man of high estate
To flowers that adorn the earth.
Who’ll carest in a century hence
Of our enjoyments, prayers, tears,
‘Tis meet fulfillment we secure
And gracious be within our grasp.
Exempt no living thing can be
Refined or cultured, fraught;
Someday he’ll harken to “the call”
Quite irrespective of his past.
So too, the pine majestically
Soughed thru that livelong day.
We wonder if those doleful tones
Were its funeral lay.
Alas! that nlte “the call” did come,
The elements seemed full of ire,
They hurled its branches everywhere
And blistered it with fire.
And from that time (sad to relate),
Vitality was almost gone,
Humiliated in the nude,
It lost all heart to carry on.
Now they have felled the old pine tree
And dragged it to the mill,
Yet we are glad in memory
It seemeth living still.
The stump serves as a monument,
In mute appeal to testify
To glorious days now gone for aye,
To all who happen by.
We’ll saw the tree for other use—
We cannot tell for what;
It lived; it grew; it passed away;
And none can say, “For Naught!”