Eliot's Oak by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Addressing an ancient oak, the speaker hears in its rustling leaves the language of a vanished people. The speaker recalls Eliot writing his Bible beneath its shade and imagines the tree alone remembering the forgotten language.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Sonnet, Nature Poetry · 154 words
First lines
Thou ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud / With sounds of unintelligible speech, / Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach, / Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd; / With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed, / Thou speakest a different dialect to each; / To me a language that no man can teach, / Of a lost race, long vanished like a cloud. / For underneath thy shade, in days remote, / Seated like Abraham at eventide / Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown / Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote / His Bible in a language that hath died / And is forgotten, save by thee alone.
Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen lines follow an ABBAABBA CDECDE rhyme scheme, turning from the oak's sounds to Eliot writing beneath it.
- Nature Poetry — The speaker compares rustling oak leaves to surf and a murmuring crowd, imagining the tree as a keeper of forgotten speech.
Tags
oak trees · forgotten languages · Bible translation · remembrance · sonnets
What this Textopian page supports
Eliot's Oak is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Nature Poetry
- Length: 154 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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