_Tree Feelings_
I wonder if they like it--being trees?
I suppose they do....
It must feel good to have the ground so flat,
And feel yourself stand right straight up like that--
So stiff in the middle--and then branch at ease,
Big boughs that arch, small ones that bend and blow,
And all those fringy leaves that flutter so.
You’d think they’d break off at the lower end
When the wind fills them, and their great heads bend.
But then you think of all the roots they drop,
As much at bottom as there is on top,--
A double tree, widespread in earth and air
Like a reflection in the water there.
I guess they like to stand still in the sun
And just breathe out and in, and feel the cool sap run;
And like to feel the rain run through their hair
And slide down to the roots and settle there.
But I think they like the wind best. From the light touch
That lets the leaves whisper and kiss so much,
To the great swinging, tossing, flying wide,
And all the time so stiff and strong inside!
And the big winds, that pull, and make them feel
How long their roots are, and the earth how leal!
And O the blossoms! And the wild seeds lost!
And jewelled martyrdom of fiery frost!
And fruit trees. I’d forgotten. No cold gem,
But to be apples--and bow down with them!
_Charlotte Perkins Stetson_
_ABC’S in Green_
The trees are God’s great alphabet:
With them He writes in shining green
Across the world His thoughts serene.
He scribbles poems against the sky
With a gay, leafy lettering,
For us and for our bettering.
The wind pulls softly at His page,
And every star and bird
Repeats in dutiful delight His word,
And every blade of grass
Flutters to class.
Like a slow child that does not heed,
I stand at summer’s knees,
And from the primer of the wood
I spell that life and love are good,
I learn to read.
_Leonora Speyer_
_O Dreamy, Gloomy, Friendly Trees!_
O dreamy, gloomy, friendly trees,
I came along your narrow track
To bring my gifts unto your knees
And gifts did you give back;
For when I brought this heart that burns--
These thoughts that bitterly repine--
And laid them here among the ferns
And the hum of boughs divine,
Ye, vastest breathers of the air,
Shook down with slow and mighty poise
Your coolness on the human care,
Your wonder on its toys,
Your greenness on the heart’s despair,
Your darkness on its noise.
_Herbert Trench_
_God, When You Thought of a Pine Tree_
God, when you thought of a pine tree,
How did you think of a star?
How did you dream of a damson west,
Crossed by an inky bar?
How did you think of a dear brown pool
Where flocks of shadows are?
God, when you thought of a cobweb,
How did you think of dew?
How did you know a spider’s house
Had spangles bright and new?
How did you know we human folk
Would love them as we do?
God, when you patterned a bird’s song,
Flung on a silver string,
How did you know the ecstasy
That crystal call would bring?
How did you think of a bubbling throat
And a darling speckled wing?
God, when you chiseled a raindrop,
How did you think of a stem,
Bearing a lovely satin leaf
To hold the tiny gem?
How did you know a million drops
Would deck the morning’s hem?
Why did you mate the moonlit night
With honeysuckle vines?
How did you know madeira bloom
Distilled ecstatic wines?
How did you weave the velvet dusk
Where tangled perfumes are?
God, when you thought of a pine tree,
How did you think of a star?
_Unknown_
_The House of the Trees_
Ope your doors and take me in,
Spirit of the wood,
Wash me clean of dust and din,
Clothe me in your mood.
Take me from the noisy light
To the sunless peace,
Where at mid-day standeth Night
Signing Toil’s release.
All your dusky twilight stores
To my senses give;
Take me in and lock the doors,
Show me how to live.
Lift your leafy roof for me,
Part your yielding walls:
Let me wander lingeringly
Through your scented halls.
Ope your doors and take me in,
Spirit of the wood;
Take me--make me next of kin
To your leafy brood.
_Ethelwyn Wetherald_
_Trees_
In the Garden of Eden, planted by God,
There were goodly trees in the springing sod,--
Trees of beauty and height and grace,
To stand in splendor before His face.
Apple and hickory, ash and pear,
Oak and beech and the tulip rare,
The trembling aspen, the noble pine,
The sweeping elm by the river line;
Trees for the birds to build and sing,
And the lilac tree for a joy in spring;
Trees to turn at the frosty call
And carpet the ground for their Lord’s footfall;
Trees for fruitage and fire and shade,
Trees for the cunning builder’s trade;
Wood for the bow, the spear, and the flail,
The keel and the mast of the daring sail;
He made them of every grain and girth,
For the use of man in the Garden of Earth.
Then lest the soul should not lift her eyes
From the gift to the Giver of Paradise,
On the crown of a hill, for all to see,
God planted a scarlet maple tree.
_Bliss Carman_
_The Trees and the Master_
Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives, they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him,
The thorn tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When death and shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last,
’Twas on a tree they slew Him--last
When out of the woods He came.
_Sidney Lanier_
_The Trees_
There’s something in a noble tree--
What shall I say? a soul?
For ’tis not form, or aught we see
In leaf or branch or bole.
Some presence, though not understood,
Dwells there alway, and seems
To be acquainted with our mood,
And mingles in our dreams.
I would not say that trees at all
Were of our blood and race,
Yet, lingering where their shadows fall,
I sometimes think I trace
A kinship, whose far-reaching root
Grew when the world began,
And made them best of all things mute
To be the friends of man.
Held down by whatsoever might
Unto an earthly sod,
They stretch forth arms for air and light,
As we do after God;
And when in all their boughs the breeze
Moans loud, or softly sings,
As our own hearts in us, the trees
Are almost human things.
What wonder in the days that burned
With old poetic dream,
Dead Phaëthon’s fair sisters turned
To poplars by the stream!
In many a light cotillion stept
The trees when fluters blew;
And many a tear, ’tis said, they wept
For human sorrow too.
Mute, said I? They are seldom thus;
They whisper each to each,
And each and all of them to us,
In varied forms of speech.
“Be serious,” the solemn pine
Is saying overhead;
“Be beautiful,” the elm-tree fine
Has always finely said;
“Be quick to feel,” the aspen still
Repeats the whole day long;
While, from the green slope of the hill,
The oak-tree adds, “Be strong.”
When with my burden, as I hear
Their distant voices call,
I rise, and listen, and draw near,
“Be patient,” say they all.
_Samuel Valentine Cole_
_Three Trees_
The poplar is a French tree,
A tall and laughing wench tree,
A slender tree, a tender tree,
That whispers to the rain--
An easy, breezy flapper tree,
A lithe and blithe and dapper tree,
A girl of trees, a pearl of trees,
Beside the shallow Aisne.
The oak is a British tree,
And not at all a skittish tree;
A rough tree, a tough tree,
A knotty tree to bruise;
A drives-his-roots-in-deep tree,
A mighty tree, a blighty tree,
A tree of stubborn thews.
The pine tree is our own tree,
A grown tree, a cone tree,
The tree to face a bitter wind,
The tree for mast and spar--
A mounting tree, a fine tree,
A fragrant turpentine tree,
A limber tree, a timber tree,
And resinous with tar!
_Christopher Morley_
_What Do We Plant?_
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the ship which will cross the sea.
We plant the mast to carry the sails;
We plant the planks to withstand the gales--
The keel, the keelson, and beam and knee;
We plant the ship when we plant the tree.
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the houses for you and me.
We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors,
We plant the studding, the lath, the doors,
The beams and siding, all parts that be;
We plant the house when we plant the tree.
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
A thousand things that we daily see;
We plant the spire that out-towers the crag,
We plant the staff for our country’s flag,
We plant the shade, from the hot sun free;
We plant all these when we plant the tree!
_Henry Abbey_
_Trees_
Many a tree is found in the wood,
And every tree for its use is good.
Some for the strength of the gnarled root,
Some for the sweetness of flower or fruit,
Some for shelter against the storm,
And some to keep the hearthstone warm,
Some for the roof and some for the beam,
And some for a boat to breast the storm.
In the wealth of the wood since the world began,
The trees have offered their gifts to man.
But the glory of trees is more than their gifts:
’Tis a beautiful wonder of life that lifts
From a wrinkled seed in an earth-bound clod
A column, an arch in the temple of God,
A pillar of power, a dome of delight,
A shrine of song and a joy of sight!
Their roots are the nurses of rivers in birth,
Their leaves are alive with the breath of the earth;
They shelter the dwellings of man, and they bend
O’er his grave with the look of a loving friend.
I have camped in the whispering forest of pines
I have slept in the shadow of olives and vines;
In the knees of an oak, at the foot of a palm,
I have found good rest and slumber’s balm.
And now, when the morning gilds the boughs
Of the vaulted elm at the door of my house,
I open the window and make a salute:
“God bless thy branches and feed thy root!
Thou hast lived before, live after me,
Thou ancient, friendly, faithful tree!”
_Henry van Dyke_
_The Trees_
Time is never wasted listening to the trees;
If to heaven so grandly we arose as these,
Holding toward each other half their kindly grace,
Haply we were worthier of our human place.
Bending down to meet you on the hillside path,
Birch and oak and maple each his welcome hath;
Each his own fine cadence, his familiar word,
By the ear accustomed, always plainly heard.
Every tree gives answer to some different mood,
This one helps you climbing; that for rest is good;
Beckoning friends, companions, sentinels they are;
Good to live and die with, good to greet afar.
_Lucy Larcom_
_Good Company_
To-day I have grown taller from walking with the trees,
The seven sister-poplars who go softly in a line;
And I think my heart is whiter for its parley with a star
That trembled out at nightfall and hung above the pine.
The call-note of a redbird from the cedars in the dusk
Woke his happy mate within me to an answer free and fine;
And a sudden angel beckoned from a column of blue smoke--
_Lord, who am I that they should stoop--these holy folk of thine?_
_Karle Wilson Baker_
_The Green Tree In The Fall_
Did you forget to bud in Spring,
O Green Tree in the Fall,
That now you wear these fresh young leaves
As for a coronal?
All of your mates within the wood
Are in the crimson leaf,
They had their swift, enamored spring,
Their summertime too brief.
But you--what chance befell that you
Were cheated of the Spring,
That now you cling so fast to leaves
Wherein no bird will sing?
My heart is with you, little tree,
For I was cheated too,
And now I grasp at what I missed
And cling as fast as you.
_Jessie B. Rittenhouse_
_The Call of the Sea_
_There’s the bird’s song and the wind’s song, and the song of
the leafless tree,
But, oh, the call of the sea’s song, the imperious song of the sea._
_There’s the song of running water, and the song of singing rain;
But, oh, the song of the masterful sea, that calls down the
coast of Maine._