378 



ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



Specimen Programs. Port Henry, IV. Y. Continued. 



5. From "Woods in Winter:" 



O'er the bare upland, and away Where, twisted round the barren oak 

 Through the long reach of desert woods. The summer vine in beauty clung 



The embracing sunbeams chastely play, And summer winds the stillness broke 

 And gladden these deep solitudes. The crystal icicle is hung. 



6. From " To the Driving Cloud ; " 



Back, then, back to thy woods ! 



There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple 



Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer 



Pine trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches. 



From " A day of Sunshine : " 



I hear the wind among the trees 

 Playing celestial symphonies ; 

 I see the branches downward bent, 

 Like keys of some great instrument. 



7. From " Autumn : " 



With what a glory comes and goes the year ! Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life 



There is a beautiful spirit breathing now Within the solemn woods of ash deep crimsoned, 



Its mellow richness on the clustered trees, And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved. 



And, from a beaker full of richest dyes. Where autumn, like a faint old man, sits down 



Pouring new glory on the autumn woods. By the way side a-weary. 

 The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, 



8. From *"An April Day." Third, fourth and fifth stanzas. See Index. 



9. From * " Sunrise on the Hills. " Last stanza. See Index. 



10. From * " Voices of the Night." First two stanzas. See Index. 



THE IRONWOOD, DEDICATED TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



By the High School. 

 GEMS FROM EMERSON : 



1. From " Nature : " 



At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city 

 estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his 

 back with the first step he takes into these precincts. The tempered light of the woods 

 is like a perpetual morning, and is stimulating and heroic. The stems of pines, hem- 

 locks and oaks almost gleam like iron on the excited eye. The incommunicable trees 

 begin to persuade us to live with them and quit our life of solemn trifles. 



2. From " The Adirondacks : " 



The wood was sovran with centennial trees, Five-leaved, three-leaved and two-leaved, grew 

 Oak, cedar, maple, poplar, beech and fir, thereby. 



Linden and spruce. In strict society Our patron pine was fifteen feet in girth, 



Three conifers, white, pitch and Norway pines, The maple eight, beneath its shapely tower. 



3. From " Farming : " 



Set out a pine-tree, and it dies in the first year, or lives a poor spindle. But nature drops 

 a pine cone in Mariposa, and it lives fifteen centuries, grows three or four hundred feet 

 high, and thirty in diameter, grows in a grove of giants, like a colonnade of Thebes. 

 Ask the tree how it was done. It did not grow on a ridge, but in a basin, where it found 

 deep soil, cold enough and dry enough for the pine; defending itself from the sun by 

 growing in groves, and from the wind by the walls of the mountain. The roots that 

 shot deepest, and the stems of happiest exposure, drew the nourishment from the rest, 

 until the less thrifty perished. 



4. The influence of forests on the healthfulness of the atmosphere demands thoughtful 

 attention. Plants imbibe from the air carbonic acid, and other gaseous and volatile pro- 

 ducts, exhaled by animals or developed by the natural phenomena of decomposition. 

 These the trees, more than the smaller plants, absorb, and instead of them pour into the 

 atmosphere pure oxygen, essential to the life of animals. The carbon, the very substance 

 of wood, is taken from the carbonic acid thus absorbed. 



