242 ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



Ranging both worlds on lightest wings of wish, 

 Will not distill the juices it has sucked 

 To the sweet substance of pellucid thought, 

 Except for him who hath the secret learned 

 To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take 

 The winds into his pulses. Hush ! 'tis he ! 

 My oriole, my glance of summer fire, 

 Is come at last, and, ever on the watch, 

 Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound 

 About the bough to help his housekeeping, 

 Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck, 

 Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, 

 Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, 

 Divines the providence that hides and helps. 

 Heave, ho ! Heave, ho ! he whistles as the twine 

 Slackens its hold ; once more, now ! and a flash 

 Lightens across the sunlight to the elm 

 Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt. 

 Nor all his booty is the thread ; he trails 

 My loosened thought with it along the air, 

 And I must follow, would I ever find 

 The inward rhyme to all this wealth of life. 



****** 



I care not how men trace their ancestry, 

 To ape or Adam ; let them please their whim ; 

 But I in June are 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. Surely there are times 

 When they consent to own me of their kin, 

 And condescend to me, and call me cousin, 

 Murmuring faint lullabies of eldest time, 

 Forgotten, and yet dumbly felt with thrills 

 Moving the lips, though fruitless of the words. 



And I have many a lifelong leafy friend, 

 Never estranged nor careful of rny soul, 

 That knows I hate the axe, and welcomes me 

 Within his tent as if I were a bird. 



****** 



Among them one, an ancient willow, spreads 

 Eight balanced limbs, springing at once all round 

 His deep-ridged trunk with upward slant diverse, 

 In outline like enormous beaker, fit 



