Canisfamiliaris

THE HOLLY TREE
By Southey
From 'The Naturalist's Poetical Companion'; Selected by the Rev Edward Wilson, MA, FLS; Leeds (1846)

O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well, perceives
Its glossy leaves
Order'd by an intelligence, so wise
As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.
Below a circling fance its leaves are seen,
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize:
And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree
Can emblems see,
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserv'd and rude;
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And as when all the Summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly-leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem amid the young and gay
more grave than they;
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.

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