184 ARBOR DAY. 



THE MURMURING PINE. 



Thou wilt not tell me, O, murmuring pine tree ! 



What thou art whispering, day by day ; 

 I cannot guess thy song's vague burden, 



And cares are calling me far away. 



And so I must go from thy half-guessed secret ; 



Thy mystic spell must not hold me long ; 

 Mine is the strife of the far-off city. 



Thine, to murmur thy woodland song. 



J. S. Cutler. 



" What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade is his ! 

 There needs no crown to mark the forest's king." 



This poem is one of the finest tributes to the moral 

 beauty of a tree which is to be found in our literature. 

 Mr. Lowell has also written poems on the pine, the birch, 

 the willow, which are frequently used on similar occasions. 



A popular favorite for Arbor Day is the " Forest 

 Hymn" of Bryant. A beautiful poem is "The Pine 

 Tree," by Ralph Waldo Emerson. There is a fine passage 

 upon the mountain ash in Wordsworth's "Excursion." 



Shakespeare's "Under the Greenwood Tree" could 

 either be said or sung on Arbor Day. " Woodman, Spare 

 That Tree," by George P. Morris, has been set to easy 

 music, and there is the song of "The Brave Old Oak," 

 once often heard in our concert rooms. The song by 

 Charles Dickens upon " The Ivy Green," in " Pickwick," 

 is interesting because Dickens wrote it, and may serve its 

 turn. 



