secretary's budget. 335 



You would hear the song of the robins 



Aswing in the apple tree, ^ 



And the voices of running waters 



In their search for the great gray sea. 



You would breathe the fragrance of clover 



In the words of every line, 

 And incense out of the censers 



Of hillside larch and pine ; 

 You would see through the words the roses, 



With, deep in their hearts of gold, 

 The sweets of a thou and summers— 



But words are so weak, so cold ! 



If I only could write the color 



Of the lilac's tossing plumes. 

 And make you feel, in a sentence, 



The spell of its sweet perfumes ; 

 If my pen could paint the glory 



Of the blue and tender sky. 

 And the peace that crowns the mountains, 



My poem would never die ! 



— Eben E. Rcvford in American Garden. 



VALUABLE. 



The best poems area legacy to the world of untold value. It is so 

 with the poetry of the farm. It not only brings comfort and happi- 

 ness to others, but possessions. Every dollar or day's work expended 

 in trees, flowers, lawns or hedges, is invested for the whole country 

 about. More than this. The value is not lost when we leave these im- 

 provements, but with all the added increments of the years of pleasant 

 thought and labor, they are handed down t:> futurity. How I honor 

 and bless the lady who planted the beautiful trees that now grace my 

 yard and shade my house. Her memory is renewed with each unfold- 

 ing leaf and growing bough. She has left me that which I could not 

 purchase with money or secure with my labot. 



Whittier most appropriately puts the value of this entail into 

 rhyme.: 



■* 'For he who blesses most is blest ; 



And God and man shall own his worth. 

 Who toils to leave as his behest, 

 An added beauty to the earth." 



