74 ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 



BEST GIFTS. 



Gifts that grow are best; 



Hands that bless are blest; 



Plant : Life does the rest ! 

 Heaven find earth help him who plants a tree, 

 And Ins work its own reward shall be. 



[Lucy Larcom. 



SYMPATHY WITH TREES. 



I care not how men trace their ancestry, 



To aj>o or Adam; let them please their whim} 



But I in June am midway to believe 



A tree among my far progenitors, 



Such sympathy is mine with all the race, 



Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet 



There is between us. 



-[Lowell. 



BRYANT, THE POET OF TREES. 



" It is pleasant," as Mr. George W. Curtis has said, "to remember, on Arbor Day, that 

 Bryant, our oldest American poet and the father of our American literature, is espe- 

 cially the poet of trees. He grew up among the solitary hills of western Massachu- 

 setts, where the woods were his nursery and the trees his earliest comrades. The 

 solemnity of the forest breathes through all his verse, and he had always, even in 

 the city, a grave, rustic air, as of a man who heard the babbling brooks and to whom 

 the trees told their secrets.'' 



His "Forest Hymn " is familiar to many, but it can not be too familiar. It would 

 be well if teachers would encourage their pupils to commit the whole, or portions 

 of it at least, to memory. Let it be made a reading lesson, but, in making it such, 

 let pains be taken to point out its felicities of expression, its beautiful moral tone 

 and lofty sentiment, and its wise counsels for life and conduct. Nothing could be 

 more appropriate, especially for the indoor portion of the Arbor Day exercises, than 

 to have this poem, or portions of it, read by some pupil in full sympathy with its 

 spirit, or by some class in concert. 



EXTRACT FROM BRYANT'S "FOREST HYMN." 



Father, Thy hand 



Hath reared these venerable columns ; Thou 

 Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down 

 Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose 

 All these fair ranks of trees. They, In Thy sun, 

 Budded, and shook their green leaves in Thy breeze, 

 And shot toward heaven. The century -living crow 

 "Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died 

 Among their branches, till, at last, they stood, 

 As they now stand, massy, and tall, and dark, 

 Fit shrine for humble worshiper to hold 

 Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults, 

 These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride 

 Report not. No fantastic carvings show 

 The boast of our vain race to change the form 

 Of Thy fair works. But Thou art here Thou fill'st 

 The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds 

 That run along the summit of these trees 

 In music; Thou art in the cooler breath 

 That from the inmost darkness of the place 

 Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground, 

 The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with Thee. 



