260 ARBOR DAY MANUAL. 



THE TULIP TREE. 



NOW my blood with long-forgotten fleetness, 

 Bounds again to boyhood's blithest tune, 

 While I drink a life of brimming sweetness 



From the glory of the breezy June. 

 Far above, the fields of ether brighten ; 



Forest leaves are twinkling in their glee; 

 And the daisy snows around me whiten, 

 Drifted down the sloping lea ! 



On the hills he standeth as a tower, 



Shining in the morn, the tulip tree! 

 On his rounded turrets beats the shower, 



While his emerald flags are flapping free ; 

 But when summer, 'mid her harvests standing, 



Pours to him the sun's unmingled wine, 

 O'er his branches, all at once expanding, 



How the starry blossoms shine ! 



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Wind of June, that sweep'st the rolling meadow, 



Thou shalt wail in branches rough and bare, 

 While the tree, o'erhung with storm and shadow, 



Writhes and creaks amid the gusty air. 

 All his leaves, like shields of fairies scattered, 



Then shall drop before the north wind's spears, 

 And his limbs, by hail and tempest battered, 



Feel the weight of wintry years. 



Yet, why cloud the rapture and the glory 



Of the beautiful, bequeathed us now? 

 Why relinquish all the summer's story, 



Calling up the bleak autumnal bough ? 

 Let thy blossoms in the morning brighten, 



Happy heart, as doth the tulip tree, 

 While the daisy's snows around us whiten, 



Drifted down the sloping lea ! 



TAYLOR. 



Flower in the crannied wall 



I pluck you out of the crannies ; 



Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 



Little flower, but if I could understand 



What you are, root and all, and all in all, 



I should know what God and man is. 



TENNYSON. 



