PLEA OF THE YOUNG EVERGREENS. 



We hide the stony mountain side with green, 



And grow in beauty where the plain was bare; 

 We cling to crannies of the walled ravine, 



And through faint valleys waft a strengthening air. 



On coastings gray we stay the creeping sand; 



We lift our spears and halt the shifting dunes; 

 Our bounteous youth makes glad the scanty land, 



While it transforms rank fens, and salt lagunes. 



We veil the prairies from the heat, while slow 



Across their farmsteads breathes our Summer balm, 



And shield them when the winds of Winter blow, 

 And all our aisles and pleasant rooms are calm. 



Through charming days we spread our branches wide, 

 And live through drouths, and flood?, and whirling storms, 



Till comes to man his merry Christmas tide, 

 That lays in myriad deaths our fairest forms. 



Men drag us from our fragrant winding vales, 



They fell us on the mountain slopes, and bare 

 The prairies unto heat, and freezing gales, 



And thinned, the chaparral plains fail unaware. 



They tear us from the wall-chinks of the glens, 



And hew us on the marsh we helped to drain, 

 And where our beauty graced, the tawny fens 



Shall lapse to weeds and sworded flags again. 



Up coastings, line the lisping, creeping sands, 



While inland move the dunes we bravely stayed, 

 When we are borne away by wasteful hands, 



To tower in rooms, with lights and gifts arrayed. 



Spare us! — oh! spare our youth, with verdure crowned — 



Our groves return to deserts when we pass; 

 The coasts which we revived, in sands are drowned; 



Bare slopes but yield their stones and bitter-grass. 



Spare us! we bring you beauty, shelter, wealth, 

 Oh! waste us not. Oh! keep with guiltless show 



The Holy Time; and life, and joy, and health, 

 Be gifts to you, while winds of Winter blow. 



— Eliza Wcodworth. 



198 



