ARBOR DAY MANUAL. 247 



A FOREST SCENE. 



I KNOW a forest vast and old, 

 A shade so rich, so darkly green, 

 That morning sends her shaft of gold 

 In vain to pierce its leafy screen ; 

 I know a brake where sleeps the fawn, 



The soft-eyed fawn, through noon's repose ; 

 For noon with all the calm of dawn 



Lies hush'd beneath those dewy boughs. 



Oh, proudly then the forest kings 



Their banners lift o'er vale and mount ; 

 And cool and fresh the wild grass springs, 



By lonely path, by sylvan fount; 

 There, o'er the fair leaf-laden rill, 



The laurel sheds her cluster'd bloom, 

 And throned upon the rock-wreathed hill 



The rowan waves his scarlet plume. 



EDITH MAY 



The forest trees are transient things and frail; 



(So the book told me, ere I closed the page) ; 

 Last year the willow leaves were wan and pale ; 



I'll make to their last place a pilgrimage, 



And changed, dead trees shall read a lesson sage 

 Of change and death. No paler than before 



I found the willow leaves, nor sign of age 

 Within the woods ; immortal green they wore, 

 And the strong, might}' roots the giant trunks upbore. 



SARAH S. JACOBS, The Changeless World. 



Tis merry in greenwood, thus runs the old la}-. 

 In the glatisome month of lively May, 

 When the wild bird's song on stem and spray 



Invites to forest bower; 

 Then rears the ash his airy crest 

 Then shines the birch in silver vest, 

 And the beech in glistening leaves is drest, 

 And dark between shows the oak's proud breast, 



Like a chieftain's frowning tower. 



Sir WALTER SCOTT, Harold the Dauntless. 



