'' Ihave ivritten many verses, lut the poems I have pro- 

 duced are the trees I planted on the hillside which over- 

 loolced the 'broad meadotos, scalloped and rounded at their 

 edges hy the Simeoi's Houstanic. Nature finds rhymes for 

 them in the recurring measures of the seasons; luinter 

 strips them of their ornaments, and gives them, as it ivere, 

 in prose traiislation, and stmimer reclothes them i7i all the 

 spleiidid phrases of their leafy kmgnage. Wliat are these 

 maples and leeches and lirches hut odes and idyls and 

 madrigals ? What are these pines and firs and spruces iut 

 holy hymns, too solemn for the many-hued raiment of their 

 gay deciduous neighbors. It is enough to knoiu that luhen 

 we plant a tree we are doing what we can to mahe our 

 planet a more icholesome and a happier dwelling-place for 

 those loho come after us, if not for ourselves." 



Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



