Travels in a Tree-top 



21 



Afar the steaming river slowly wends 

 Its tortuous way to mingle with the sea ; 



No cheerful voice its languid course attends ; 

 The blight of silence rests upon the lea. 



Where the wide meadow spreads its wealth of weeds, 

 Where the rank harvest waves above the field, 



The testy hornet in his anger speeds, 



And stolid beetle bears his brazen shield. 



Give them the glowing, fiery world they love. 

 Give me the cool retreat beside the stream 5 



While sweeps the sun the noontide sky above. 

 Here would I linger with the birds and dream. 



And now what of the tree itself? Here 

 I have been the better part of a long fore- 

 noon, and scarcely given this fine young oak 

 a thought. A young oak, yet a good deal 

 older than its burden ; an oak that was an 

 acorn when the century was new, and now 

 a sturdy growth full sixty feet high, straight 

 of stem to its undermost branches and shapely 

 everywhere. Such trees are not remarkable 

 of themselves, though things of beauty, but 

 at times how suggestive ! Think of pre- 

 Columbian America ; then there were oaks to 

 make men marvel. There were giants in 

 those days." Occasionally we meet with 



