Sever’d from thy slender stalk,
Wither’d wand’rer! knowest thou?
Would’st thou tell, if leaves might talk,
Whence thou art?--Where goest thou?
Nothing know I!--tempests’ strife
From the proud oak tore me;
Broke my every tie to life,
Whelm’d the tree that bore me.
Zephyr’s fickle breath,--the blast
From the northern ocean,
Since that day my lot have cast
By their varying motion.
From the mountain’s breezy height
To the silent valley,
From the forest’s darksome night
To the plain I sally.
Wheresoever wafts the wind,
Restless flight constraining,
There I wander unconfin’d,
Fearless, uncomplaining.
On I go--where all beside
Like myself are going;
Where oblivion’s dreamless tide
Silently is flowing.
There like beauty, frail and brief,
Fades the pride of roses;
There the laurel’s honour’d leaf--
Sear’d and scorn’d-reposes.
_Bernard Barton._
About the middle of August, the viper brings forth her young. She
produces from twelve to twenty-five eggs, from which, when hatched, her
offspring come forth nearly of the size of earthworms.[257]
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