ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
270 
SONG TO THE TREES. 
MAY BE ARRANGED FOR A CLASS-OF SIX PUPILS. 
I. 
H AIL to the trees ! 
Patient and generous, mothers of mankind, 
Arching the hills, the minstrels of the wind, 
Spring’s glorious flowers, and summer’s balmy tents, 
A sharer in man’s free and happier sense, 
From early blossom till the north wind calls 
Its drowsy sprites from beech-hid waterfalls, 
The trees bless all, and then, brown-mantled, stand 
The sturdy prophets of a golden land. 
11. 
Eden was clothed in trees; their glossy leaves 
■Gave raiment, food, and shelter ; ’neath their eaves 
Dripping with ruby dew the flow’rets rose 
To follow man from Eden to his woes. 
The silver rill crept fragrant thickets through, 
The air was rich with life, a violet hue 
Tangling with sunshine lit the waving scene, 
’Twas heaven, tree-born, tree-lulled, enwreathed in green. 
hi. 
Where trees are not, behold the deserts swoon 
Beneath the brazen sun and mocking moon. 
Where trees are not, the tawny torrent leaps, 
A brawling savage from the crumbling steeps, 
Where once the ferns their gentle branches waved 
And tender lilies in the crystal laved ; 
A brawling savage, plundering in a night. 
The fields it once strayed through a strearhlet bright. 
IV. 
What gardeners like the trees? Their loving care 
The daintiest blooms can deftly^ plant and rear. 
How smilingly with outstretched boughs they stand 
To shade the flowers too fragile for man’s hand ! 
With scented leaves, crisp, ripened, nay, not dead, 
They tuck the" wild flowers in their moss-rimmed bed. 
The forest nook outvies the touch of art, 
The heart of man loves not like the oak's heart. 
v. 
O whispering trees, companions, sages, friends, 
No change in you, whatever friendship ends ; 
No deed of yours the Eden link e’er broke; 
