20 ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



And guests in prouder homes shall see, . 

 Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine 

 And golden orange of the line, 



The fruit of the apple tree. 



The fruitage of this apple tree 

 Winds and our flag of stripe and star 

 Shall bear to coasts that lie afar, 

 Where men shall wonder at the view, 

 And ask in what fair groves they grew; 



And sojourners beyond the sea 

 Shall think of childhood's careless day, 

 And long, long hours of summer play, 



In the shade of the apple tree. 



Each year shall give this apple tree 

 A broader flush of roseate bloom, 

 A deeper maze of verdurous gloom, 

 And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower, 

 The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower. 



The years shall come and pass, but we 

 Shall hear no longer, where we lie, 

 The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh, 



In the boughs of the apple tree. 



And time shall waste this apple tree. 

 Oh, when its aged branches throw 

 Thin shadows on the ground below, 

 Shall fraud and force and iron will 

 Oppress the weak and helpless still ? 



What shall the tasks of mercy be, 

 Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears 

 Of those who live when length of years 



Is wasting this little apple tree ? 



"Who planted this old apple tree?" 

 The children of that distant day 

 Thus to some aged man shall say; 

 And, gazing on its mossy stem, 

 The gray-haired man shall answer them : 



"A poet of the land was he, 

 Born in the rude but good old times: 

 'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes, 

 On planting the apple tree." 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 



