284 
ARBOR DAY MANUAL. 
AMONG THE TREES. 
O H ye who love to overhang the springs, 
And stand by running waters, ye whose boughs 
Make beautiful the rocks o’er which they play, 
Who pile with foliage the great hills, and rear 
A paradise upon the lonely plain, 
Trees of the forest, and the open field ! 
Have ye no sense of being? Does the air, 
The pure air, which I breathe with gladness, pass 
In gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your leaves, 
All unenjoyed ? When on your winter’s sleep 
The sun shines warm, have ye no dreams of spring? 
And when the glorious spring-time comes at last, 
Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds, 
And fragrant blooms, and melody of birds 
To which your young leaves shiver? Do ye strive 
And wrestle with the wind, yet know it not ? 
Feel ye no glory in your strength, when he, 
The exhausted blusterer, flies beyond the hills, 
And leaves you stronger yet? Or have ye not 
A sense of loss when he has stripped your leaves, 
Yet tender, and has splintered your fair boughs? 
Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloud 
And rends you, fall unfelt ? Do there not run 
Strange shudderings through your fibres when the ax 
Is raised against you, and the shining blade 
Deals blow on blow, until, with all their boughs, 
Your summits waver and ye fall to earth ? 
Know ye no sadness when the hurricane , 
Has swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stems 
Asunder, or has wrenched, from out the soil, 
The mightiest with their circles of strong roots, 
And piled the ruin all along his path ? 
Nay, doubt we not that under the rough rind, 
In the green veins of these fair growths of earth, 
There dwells a nature that receives delight 
From all the gentle processes of life. 
And shrinks from loss of being. Dim and faint 
May be the sense of pleasure and of pain, 
As in our dreams; but, haply, real still. 
For still 
The February sunshine steeps your boughs 
And tints the buds and swells the leaves within ; 
