2 88 ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



TREE BURIAL. 



NEAR our south-western border, when a child 

 Dies in the cabin of an Indian wife, 

 She makes its funeral couch of delicate furs, 

 Blankets and bark, and binds it to the bough 

 Of some broad branching tree with leathern thongs 

 And sinews of the deer. A mother once 

 Wrought at this tender task, and murmured thus : 



" Child of my love, I do not lay thee down 

 Among the chilly clods where never comes 

 The pleasant sunshine. There the greedy wolf 

 Might break into thy grave and tear thee thence, 

 And I should sorrow all my life. I make 

 Thy burial-place here, where the light of day 

 Shines round thee, and the airs that play among 

 The boughs shall rock thee. Here the morning sun, 

 Which woke thee once from sleep to smile on me, 

 Shall beam upon thy bed, and sweetly here 

 Shall lie the red light of the evening clouds 

 Which called thee once to slumber. Here the stars 

 Shall look upon thee the bright stars of heaven 

 Which thou didst wonder at. Here too the birds, 

 Whose music thou didst love, shall sing to thee, 

 And near thee build their nests and rear their young 

 With none to scare them. Here the woodland flowers. 

 Whose opening in the spring-time thou didst greet 

 With shouts of joy, and which so well became 

 Thy pretty hands when thou didst gather them, 

 Shall spot the ground below thy little bed. 



******* 



BRYANT. 



The thorns which I reaped are of the tree 



I planted, they have torn me and I bleed ; 



I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. 



BYRON'S Childe Harold. 



'' O, for a seat in some poetic nook 

 Just hid with trees and sparkling with a brook." 



LEIGH HUNT. 



