DECEMBER 



5 



All things considered, no evergreen can be equal 

 to a summer-green, on which we see the leaves bud- 

 ding, unfolding, ripening, and falling, a " worlde 

 whiche neweth everie daie." What would win- 

 ter be worth without the naked branches of maples 

 and elms, beeches and oaks ? We speak of them 

 sadly : 



"Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang." 



But the sadness is of a pleasing sort, that could ill 

 be spared by any who know the pleasures of senti- 

 ment and sober reflection. 



TOERET: The Foot-Path Way. 



The deciduous trees are inconstant friends that 

 fail us when adverse winds do blow ; but the pine 

 and all its tribe look winter cheerily in the face, 

 tossing the snow, masquerading in his arctic livery, 

 in fact holding high carnival from fall to spring. 

 The Norseman of the woods, lofty and aspiring, 

 tree without bluster or noise, that sifts the howl- 

 ing storm into a fine spray of sound ; symmetrical 

 tree, tapering, columnar, shaped as in a lathe, the 

 preordained mast of ships, the mother of colossal 

 timbers ; centralized, towering, patriarchal, coming 

 down from the foreworld, counting centuries in 

 thy rings and outlasting empires in thy decay. 



BURROUGHS: Signs and Seasons. 



