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love and lover are dead and dust. In the 

 quaint, tipsy lettering read the tree's sad- 

 dening message. " All is vanity," it saith. 

 " Life doth fade as a leaf. As for the dead, 

 their works do follow them." 



A little space and Wild-Cherry trees cover 

 the face of earth. A tall growth and good- 

 ly. It rises so straight, so stately, to fill 

 the world with its fine, faint almond scent. 

 These be woodland senators, justifiably 

 proud, nodding one to the other, " After us, 

 the judgment." 



Beyond them a Sweet-Gum towers. Sev- 

 enty feet of straight roundness to the first 

 limb. Will you gainsay that here is a 

 knight-errant, rising thus high to spy out 

 wrong and oppression ? 



Close beside a Sugar-Maple tosses and 

 preens her, conscious of the sweet sap 

 treasured at her heart. There is the vil- 

 lage belle, intoxicate with her own charms, 

 and all oblivious of her sister, the Swamp- 

 maple, born tragedy's queen. All through 

 the white winter she sleeps, dreaming of 

 blood blood that the spring pours over 

 her, a rain of scarlet blossoms. 



The Sycamore Scripture's plane-tree 

 has surely the legal habit of mind. His 

 coat sets so loose he must be forever turn- 



12 



