Let us wave our branches gently
With a murmur low and loving;
He will say we sang him quaintly
Some old ballad, sweetly moving.
'Tis of all the ways the surest
To awake a poet's fancies,
For he loves these things the purest--
Sigh of leaves, and scent of pansies.
He has loved us, we will love him,
And will cheer his hour of sadness,
Spirits, wave your boughs above him
To a measure of soft gladness.