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ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
pines must have grown on the sea-shore, and learned their first accents from 
the surf and the waves; and all their posterity have inherited the sound, and 
borne it inland to the mountains. 
I like best a forest of mingled trees, ash, maple, oak, beech, hickory, and 
evergreens, with birches growing along the edges of the brook that carries itself 
through the roots and stones, toward the willows that grow in yonder meadow. 
It should be deep and sombre in some directions, running off into shadowy re¬ 
cesses and coverts beyond all footsteps. In such a wood there is endless variety. 
It will breathe as many voices to your fancy as might be brought from any 
organ beneath the pressure of some Handel’s hands. By the way, Handel and 
Beethoven always remind me of forests. So do some poets, whose numbers 
are various as the infinity of vegetation, fine as the choicest cut leaves, strong 
and rugged in places as the unbarked trunk and gnarled roots at the ground’s 
surface. Is there any other place, except the sea side, where hours are so 
short and moments so swift as in a forest ? Where else, except in the rare 
•communion of those friends much loved, do we awake from pleasure, whose 
calm flow is without a ripple, into surprise that whole hours are gone which we 
thought but just begun — blossomed and dropped, which we thought but just 
budding! 
Henry Ward Beecher. 
SPRING-TIME. 
’'T'IS spring-time, bright spring-time ! all nature is gay; 
| For winds cold and piercing have all passed away ; 
And now the bright sunshine gives warmth to the air, 
• And changes delightful are seen everywhere. 
The farmer with keen plow is tilling the ground, 
Then seeds with his hand he will scatter around ; 
The little birds build their warm nests in the trees, 
And twitter and chirp as they fly in the breeze. 
The buds on the hedge-rows all open out so, 
And gay-colored blossoms begin now to grow; 
The daisies, and cowslips, and primroses sweet, 
We make into bouquets, so pretty and neat. 
The call of the bluebird so joyous doth rise, 
As cheerful and happy now onward he flies ; 
The lambkins are skipping and running with glee,— 
A pleasing example to you and to me ! 
Yon sturdy oak whose branches wide 
Boldly the storms and wind defy, 
Not long ago, an acorn small, 
Lay dormant ’neath a summer sky.” 
