284 ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



AMONG THE TREES. 



OH ye who love to overhang the springs, 

 And stand by running waters, ye whose boughs 

 Make beautiful the rocks o'er which they play, 

 Who pile with foliage the great hills, and rear 

 A paradise upon the lonely plain, 

 Trees of the forest, and the open field ! 

 Have ye no sense of being? Does the air, 

 The pure air, which I breathe with gladness, pass 

 In gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your leaves, 

 All unenjoyed ? When on your winter's sleep 

 The sun shines warm, have ye no dreams of spring? 

 And when the glorious spring-time comes at last, 

 Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds, 

 And fragrant blooms, and melody of birds 

 To which your young leaves shiver? Do ye strive 

 And wrestle with the wind, yet know it not ? 

 Feel ye no glory in your strength, when he, 

 The exhausted blusterer, flies beyond the hills, 

 And leaves you stronger yet ? Or have ye not 

 A sense of loss when he has stripped your leaves, 

 Yet tender, and has splintered your fair boughs? 

 Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloud 

 And rends you, fall unfelt ? Do there not run 

 Strange shudderings through your fibres when the ax 

 Is raised against you, and the shining blade 

 Deals blow on blow, until, with all their boughs, 

 Your summits waver and ye fall to earth ? 

 Know ye no sadness when the hurricane 

 Has swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stems 

 Asunder, or has wrenched, from out the soil, 

 The mightiest with their circles of strong roots, 

 And piled the ruin all along his path ? 



Nay, doubt we not that under the rough rind, 

 In the green veins of these fair growths of earth, 

 There dwells a nature that receives delight 

 From all the gentle processes of life, 

 And shrinks from loss of being. Dim and faint 

 May be the sense o pleasure and of pain, 



As in our dreams ; but, haply, real still. 



***** 



For still 



The February sunshine steeps your boughs 

 And tints the buds and swells the leaves within ; 



