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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 45

The Upas Tree. — A Fragment

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The Upas Tree.

A Fragment.

"The story of a poison-vale in Java in which the exhalations of numerous poison trees extinguish all animal life, and even all vegetable life, is a mere fable."—Chamber's Encyclopædia.

"The Upas tree, my lad the grim man said,
While time's rough wrinkles on his sun-browned face
Grew deeper with the bitter laugh and sneer
With which he gave his sentence utterance.
" The Upas tree's all-blasting, deadly taint
That saps all life, and strikes each strong man down
That dares adventure near its poisoned breath,
Is all a fable—so wiseacres tell—
A wild romance that, like a fabled ghost,
Is conjured up by weird poetic brain
To frighten or amuse the gaping world.
I tell you 'tis no fable, lad; for I
Have seen it in its brightest, deadliest bloom,
And marked the dire effects on him who dared
Inhale the fatal poison of its breath.
Listen_____

When I was such a lad as you
I knew no mother, and was wont each night
To take my father's hand, and with him walk
Along the dark and solitary streets.
My father was not what the world calls good,
And nightly, I accompanying, sought
Low haunts—hothouses, where the Upas plant
Openly flourished, till the air around
Was laden with the poison of its bloom.
There I have seen young men and maidens fair=
Inhale its baleful fragrance till they sought
The shameful death its wild delirium brought;
There too I saw grey hairs that found not reverence,
And mothers who, for babes upon their breasts
Had neither love nor milk, all, all dried up
By the curst odour of the Upas tree,
That left nor marrow in their bones, and killed
All womanhood and all maternity.

"Myself these things have seen, yet sages say
The poison-tree is but a fabled tale—
Oh! look around, and mark how all the air
Is blighted with the odour of strong drink,
Then, if thou canst, before thy God declare
The Upas tree a fable."