The years shall come and pass, but we
Shall hear no longer, where we lie,
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh,
In the boughs of the apple tree.
And time shall waste this apple tree.
Oh, when its aged branches throw
Thin shadows on the ground below,
Shall fraud and force and iron will
Oppress the weak and helpless still?
What shall the tasks of mercy be,
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears,
Of those who live when length of years
Is wasting this apple tree?
"Who planted this old apple tree?"
The children of that distant day
Thus to some aged man shall say;
And, gazing on its mossy stem,
The gray-haired man shall answer them:
"A poet of the land was he,
Born in the rude but good old times;
"Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes
On planting the apple tree."
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
An Apple Orchard in the Spring
Green Things
Have you seen an apple orchard in the spring? Growing
In the spring?
An English apple orchard in the spring?
When the spreading trees are hoary
With their wealth of promised glory,
And the mavis sings its story,
In the spring.
Have you plucked the apple blossoms in the
spring?
In the spring?
And caught their subtle odors in the spring?
Pink buds pouting at the light,
Crumpled petals baby white,
Just to touch them a delight—
In the spring.
Have you walked beneath the blossoms in the
spring?
In the spring?
Beneath the apple blossoms in the spring?
When the pink cascades are falling,
And the silver brooklets brawling,
And the cuckoo bird soft calling,
In the spring.
If you have not, then you know not, in the spring,
In the spring,
Half the color, beauty, wonder of the spring,
No sweet sight can I remember
Half so precious, half so tender,
As the apple blossoms render
In the spring.
Mine Host of The Golden Apple"
A goodly host one day was mine,
A Golden Apple his only sign,
That hung from a long branch, ripe and fine.
My host was the bountiful apple-tree;
He gave me shelter and nourished me
With the best of fare, all fresh and free.
And light-winged guests came not a few,
To his leafy inn, and sipped the dew,
And sang their best songs ere they flew.
I slept at night on a downy bed
Of moss, and my Host benignly spread
His own cool shadow over my head.
When I asked what reckoning there might be,
He shook his broad boughs cheerily:-
A blessing be thine, green Apple-tree!
THOMAS WESTWOOD.
I love thee when thy swelling buds appear,
And one by one their tender leaves unfold,
As if they knew that warmer suns were near,
Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold;
And when with darker growth thy leaves are seen
To veil from view the early robin's nest,
I love to lie beneath thy waving screen,
With limbs by summer's heat and toil oppressed;
And when the autumn winds have stripped thee
bare,
And round thee lies the smooth, untrodden snow,
When naught is thine that made thee once so fair,
I love to watch thy shadowy form below,
And through thy leafless arms to look above
On stars that brighter beam when most we need
their love.
A Young Fir-Wood
These little firs to-day are things
To clasp into a giant's cap,
Or fans to suit his lady's lap.
From many winters, many springs
Shall cherish them in strength and sap,
Till they be marked upon the map,
A wood for the wind's wanderings.
All seed is in the sower's hands:
And what at first was trained to spread
Its shelter for some single head,-
Yea, even such fellowship of wands,—
May hide the sunset, and the shade
Of its great multitude be laid
Upon the earth and elder sands.
The Snowing of the Pines
Softer than silence, stiller than still air
Float down from high pine-boughs the slender
The forest floor its annual boon receives
That comes like snowfall, tireless, tranquil, fair.
Gently they glide, gently they clothe the bare
Old rocks with grace. Their fall a mantle weaves
Of paler yellow than autumnal sheaves.
Or those strange blossoms the witch-hazels wear.
Athwart long aisles the sunbeams pierce their
High up, the crows are gathering for the night;
The delicate needles fill the air; the jay
Takes through their golden mist his radiant
flight;
They fall and fall, till at November's close
The snow-flakes drop as lightly-snows on snows.
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
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