ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
THE OLIVE TREES OF PALESTINE. 
I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. — Psalm 52:8. ^ 
A MONG the gray old rounded hills, 
O’er regions broad of Holy Land, 
A grateful scene the vision fills. 
Where clustering groves of olive stand. 
Rich in the vales, the slopes they trace, 
And oft the rocky summits crown; 
The thrifty saplings grow apace 
Beside the trees of gnarled renown. 
Slowly the grafted stems mature — 
From olives wild no fruit appears — 
But long the sturdy plants endure, 
And measure oft a thousand years. 
They love the hard and flinty soil, 
Drive down their roots amid the rocks, 
Draw out from thence their choicest oil, 
And stand secure from stormy shocks. 
Symmetric beauty, humble, calm, 
• Their pleasant features clearly mark, 
Not like the tall and tufted palm, 
Nor tapering cypress, slender, dark. 
When vernal airs and skies appear, 
Star-blooms of purest white are seen, 
’Mid narrow leaves that all the year 
Keep an unchanging evergreen. 
While blossoms fade, or falling oft 
From arching boughs they lately decked, 
That dusky hue of foliage soft 
With deeper emerald gems is flecked. 
Through arid heats of summer time, 
When fountains fail and leaves are brown, 
That fadeless verdure holds its prime, 
And rounding berries fill its crown. 
As autumn days their exit make, 
Ring all the groves in merry gale. 
While stalwart hands the branches shake. 
And purple fruit descends like hail. 
Their sacks the gleeful maidens fill, 
And bear them on their heads away; 
On topmost boughs are berries still, 
To cheer the poor who hither stray. 
When sacred hills in mantling snow 
Feel winter storms along them sweep, 
And torrents cold through valleys flow, 
Unwithered leaves the olives keep. 
The richest wealth the people know, 
The largest comforts that they see, 
Each daily meal, the lamp’s bright glow, 
Attest the value of the tree. 
Down to their life’s remotest stage. 
Though trunk decays and boughs are grim. 
The reverend forms are green in age, 
And berries hang from every limb. 
Such are the grand old sacred trees 
I saw in sweet Gethsemane, 
And thought of Him whose holy knees 
Bowed under burdens there for me. 
Along the slope of that dear hill, 
To where He vanished in the sky, 
Infrequent stands the olive still, 
To bring the days of Jesus nigh. 
And o’er the ridge they cluster sweet, 
Where Bethany, beloved for Him, 
So oft received His weary feet, 
When day declined to twilight dim. 
Emblem of peace! I would like thee 
In living faithfulness abound; 
Oh! let me, like the olive tree, 
Within the house of God be found. 
Hours at Home, 1S66. 
