,26 
ARBOR DAY'MANUAL. 
of bees, for sound ; and like stirring a fire full of sparks for upspringing" 
thoughts and ideal suggestions. The melodious whirl draws out a flittering 
swarm of sweet images that play before the eye like those evening troops of 
gauzy insects that hang in the air between you and the sun, and pipe their own 
music, and flit in airy rounds of mingled dance as if the whole errand of their 
lives was to swing in mazes of sweet music. 
Different species of trees move their leaves very differently, so that one may 
sometimes tell by the motion of shadows on the ground, if he be too indolent 
to look up, under what kind of tree he is dozing. On the tulip-tree (which has 
the finest name that ever tree had, making the very pronouncing of its name 
almost like the utterance of a strain of music — liriodendron tulipifera) — on 
the tulip-tree, the aspen, and on all native poplars, the leaves are apparently 
Anglo-Saxon or Germanic, having an intense individualism. Each one moves 
to suit itself. Under the same wind one is trilling up and down, another is- 
whirling, another slowly vibrating right and left, and others still, quieting them¬ 
selves to sleep, as a mother gently pats her slumbering child; and each one 
intent upon a motion of its own. Sometimes other trees have single frisky 
leaves, but, usually, the oaks, maples, beeches, have community of motion. 
They are all acting together, or all are alike still. 
What is sweeter than a murmur of leaves, unless it be the musical gurgling" 
of water that runs secretly and cuts under the roots of these trees, and makes 
little bubbling pools that laugh to see the drops stumble over the root and 
plump down into its bosom ! In such nooks could trout lie. Unless ye would 
become mermaids, keep far from such places, all innocent grasshoppers, and 
all ebony crickets ! Do not believe in appearances. You peer over and know 
that there is no danger. You can see the radiant' gravel. You know that no 
enemy lurks in that fairy pool. You can see every nook and corner of it, and 
it is as sweet a bathing pool as ever.was swam by long-legged grasshoppers. 
Over the root comes a butterfly with both sails a little drabbled, and quicker’ 
than light he is plucked down, leaving three or four bubbles behind him, fit 
emblems of a butterfly’s life. There ! did I not tell you ? Now go away all 
maiden crickets and grasshoppers! These fair surfaces, so pure, so crystalline, 
so surely safe, have a trout somewhere in them lying in wait for you ! 
But what if one sits between both kinds of music, leaves above and water 
below ? What if birds are among the leaves, sending out random calls, far- 
piercing and sweet, as if they were lovers saying, “ My dear, are you there?’ 
If you are half reclining upon a cushion of fresh new moss, that swells up bev 
tween the many-plied and twisted roots of a huge beech tree, and if yoy have- 
been there a half an hour without moving, and if you will still keep motionless; 
yoy may see what they who only walk through forests never see. * * * 
Thus do you stand, noble elms ! Lifted up so high are your topmost boughs, 
that no indolent birds care to seek you; and only those of nimble wings, and 
they with unwonted beat, that love exertion, and aspire to sing where none 
sing higher. Aspiration ! so Heaven gives it pure as flames to the noble bosom- 
But debased with passion and selfishness it comes to be only Ambition ! 
It was in the presence of this pasture-elm, which we name the Queen, that: 
we first felt to our very marrow, that we had indeed become owners of the: 
