296 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE NORTHERN 



Ebon Concords. Israellas, Clintons swinging from tlie trellis, 



Sugary Dclawares, witli pomp of purple-pouting Isabellas, 



Doolittles and rank Miamis, golden cap and nectary Brinkle, 



Wltli their rich and raspy treasures all the bending canes o'er-sprinkle— 



O! the beauty and the richness, the uufathomed rippling sweetness, 



In God's hidden laboratory pushed and rounded to completeness ! 



Yet more dear than flower or fruitage, or the sweetest odor shed 



From the bell of hyacinth or lily's milk-white bending head. 



Rise my ranks of evergreens, in radiant order circling all. 



To the blast that sweeps the waste, a dense, Impenetrable wall. 



O I the rich, resplendent verdure that to us is never lost '. 



O! primeval bloom and glory ! proof against the snow and frost! 



With a love like woman's I have laid my hand upon theii- brows, 



Through my slumber streams and thunders the great organ of their boughs. 



Like Hyperions mad with wounds across the black air how they sway, 



Writhe and moan and shout and toss their knotted arms with mosses gray. 



While the timid lips of whirlwinds blow the thunder-groan this way; 



And af oil the spirits, nectars, soul-intoxicating wines. 



Grandest is the march of winds across the tops of rocking jiines; 



When the world from me is passing, I amidst their gloom would die; 



With their bearded boughs around me, I would close my fading eye. 



Feel their slender, brown leaves falling on the grave in which I lie. 



'Tis for this that I have sought them, brought them from their homes afar. 



Lands that Arctic frosts have fettered or that Tropic thunders jar; 



"Tis for this that I have taught them here in shining rows to stand ; 



Shields to glance the north wind's arrows from the heart of prairie land; 



Round their brows there glows a beauty we are far too poor to miss; 



In their culture lies a duty that may heliJ us on to bliss. 



Not alone by polished words to gaudy congregations spoken. 



Are we roused to deeds of goodness, are the brazen fetters broken. 



Nobly preaches he who plants a tree where not a tree is growing; 



Rightly lorays the man who scatters roses where no rose is blowing. 



Triple ranks of pines and spruces all my shrubs and groves surround; 



Lither trunks and fairer branches never rose from any ground. 



Cedars thrive in lengthening hedges, pyramids and shaven cones; 



From their depths the large-eyed thrushes watch me from their grass-built thrones; 



There the cat-bird and the sparrow guard their broods of callow ones; 



There the crested wax-wings linger when November frosts have come. 



Filling with their social chatter all the dim and balmy gloom. 



White pines from my native hillsides, green and strong, are waving hero; 

 Red, loblolly, Scotch and Austrian, robed like kings, are rising near; 

 Foreign plains, and nameless forests, distant realms from o'er the sea, 

 Make their noble contributions, send their royal gifts to me; 

 From the jagged sides of Schreck horn, from the dark blue Appenine, 

 And the roots of white St. Gothard, I have brought my Cembran pine. 

 Austria sends my grand sylvestris, Rvissian Crimea, my pallas; 

 Waved my cluster-coned pinaster in the warm Samarian valleys; 

 From where wolves the frosty silence of tke Saskatchawan stir. 

 Giant, towering among pigmies, comes my kingly Douglas flr,* 

 Grandly tower the dark Sierras, fenced around with granite walls. 

 Glorious with the hum and silver front of the thundrous waterfalls— 

 The sua, in vales that slumber in the mountain's rocky arms, 

 Many a nameless seed and scion into life gigantic warms— 



*This is a gisantic sptcies of firfouiid growingiu Northwest America between latitude 4o degrees and 52 degrees 

 North. The trunks are from 180 to 200 feet high and attain a diameter of 10 feet. Tlie Abies grandia, of California, 

 reaches tlie height of !!00 feet; leaves very long and narrow ; cones tliree to lour inches , oblong, erect, sligbtlj' curving. 

 The wood is white, soft and inferior. A nobler species of California fir is the Aoies nohilis, with excellent timber. The 

 Abies picea is a native of Europe, growing on dry, stony and exposed places and attains a height of 130 or 150 feet. The 

 gigantic ■' cedar" of California, known as the big free, is not a fir tree but is nearly related to the cypresses. 



