The Holly-Tree

O Reader! hast thou ever stood to see           The holly-tree? The eye that contemplates it well perceives           Its glossy leaves Ordered by an intelligence so wise As might confound the atheist’s sophistries. Below, a circling fence, 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 unarmed 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,           Reserved 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.