96 ARBOR DAY 



For we have not come here for long debate 

 Nor taking counsel for our household order, 

 Howe'er we make a feint of serious things, 

 For all the world as in affairs of state 

 A word goes out for war along the border 

 To further or defeat the loves of kings. 

 We put our house to rights from year to year, 

 But that is not the call that brings us here; 

 We have come here to be glad. 



A road runs east and a road runs west 

 From the table where we sing; 

 And the lure of the one is a roving quest, 

 And the lure of the other a lotus dream. 

 And the eastward road leads into the West 

 Of the lifelong chase of the vanishing gleam; 

 And the westward road leads into the East, 

 Where the spirit from striving is released, 

 Where the soul like a child in God's arms lies 

 And forgets the lure of the butterflies. 

 And west is east, if you follow the trail to the end; 

 And east is west, if you follow the trail to the end; 

 And the East and the West in the spring of the world 

 shall blend. 



As a man and a woman that plight 

 Their troth in the warm spring night. 

 And the spring for the East is the sap in the heart 

 of a tree; 



