Our Casuarina Tree

Like a huge Python, winding round and round  
   The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars,  
   Up to its very summit near the stars,  
A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound  
   No other tree could live. But gallantly        
The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung  
In crimson clusters all the boughs among,  
   Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee;  
And oft at nights the garden overflows  
With one sweet song that seems to have no close,          
Sung darkling from our tree, while men repose.  

When first my casement is wide open thrown  
   At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest;  
   Sometimes, and most in winter,—on its crest  
A gray baboon sits statue-like alone        
   Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs  
His puny offspring leap about and play;  
And far and near kokilas hail the day;  
   And to their pastures wend our sleepy cows;  
And in the shadow, on the broad tank cast          
By that hoar tree, so beautiful and vast,  
The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed.  

But not because of its magnificence  
   Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:  
   Beneath it we have played; though years may roll,        
O sweet companions, loved with love intense,  
   For your sakes, shall the tree be ever dear.  
Blent with your images, it shall arise  
In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes!  
   What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear        
Like the sea breaking on a shingle-beach?  
It is the tree’s lament, an eerie speech,  
That haply to the unknown land may reach.  

Unknown, yet well-known to the eye of faith!  
   Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away        
   In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay,  
When slumbered in his cave the water-wraith  
   And the waves gently kissed the classic shore  
Of France or Italy, beneath the moon,  
When earth lay trancèd in a dreamless swoon:      
   And every time the music rose,—before  
Mine inner vision rose a form sublime,  
Thy form, O Tree, as in my happy prime  
I saw thee, in my own loved native clime.  

Therefore I fain would consecrate a lay        
   Unto thy honor, Tree, beloved of those  
   Who now in blessed sleep, for aye, repose,
Dearer than life to me, alas! were they!  
   Mayst thou be numbered when my days are done  
With deathless trees—like those in Borrowdale,        
Under whose awful branches lingered pale  
   “Fear, trembling Hope, and Death, the skeleton,  
And Time the shadow;” and though weak the verse  
That would thy beauty fain, oh fain rehearse,  
May Love defend thee from Oblivion’s curse.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on March 26, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“Our Casuarina Tree” was published in Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1882). In Critical Survey of Poetry, vol. 8, second ed. (Salem Press, 2003), editors Philip K. Jason and Frank N. Magill write, “This poem, reminiscent in both form and content of [John] Keats’s odes, is about the beautiful Casuarina tree in the poet’s garden at Baugmaree. The tree, by the end of the poem, becomes a symbol not only of the poet’s joyous childhood but also, through an extension in time and space, of the poet’s longing for permanence and eternity. The poem is a masterpiece of craftsmanship, a fine blending of thought, emotion, and form.”