238 ARBOR DAY MANUAL. 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 



WORDS pass as wind, but when great deeds were done 

 A power abides transfused from sire to son ; 

 The boy feels deeper meanings thrill his ear, 

 That tingling through his pulse life-long shall run, 

 With sure impulsion to keep honor clear, 

 When, pointing down, his father whispers, '' Here, 

 Here, where we stand, stood he, the purely Great. 

 Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, 

 Then nameless, now a power and mixed with fate." 

 Historic town, thou holdest sacred dust, 

 Once known to men as pious, learned, just, 

 And one memorial pile that dares to last ; 

 But Memory greets with reverential kiss 

 No spot in all thy circuit sweet as this, 

 Touched by that modest glory as it past, 

 O'er which yon elm hath piously disp^ed 

 These hundred years its monumental shade. 



Of our swift passage through this scenery 



Of life and death, more durable than we, 



What landmark so congenial as a tree 



Repeating its green legend every spring, 



And, with a yearly ring, 



Recording the fair seasons as they flee, 



Type of our brief but still-renewed mortality? 



Beneath our consecrated elm 



A century ago he stood, 



Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood 



Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm 



The life fore-doomed to wield our rough-hewn helm ! 



From colleges, where now the gown 



To arms hath yielded, from the town, 



Our rude self-summoned levies flocked to see 



The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he. 



No need to question long; close-lipped and tall, 



Long-trained in murder-brooding forests lone 



To bridle other's clamors and his own, 



Firmly erect, he towered above them all, 



The incarnate discipline that was to free 



With iron curb that armed democracy. 



LOWELL'S Cambridge Elm. 



