Volume 5 — THE LESSON OF THE WOOD.

In the same soil the family of trees Spring up, and, like a band of brothers, grow In the same sun, while from their leafy lips Comes not the faintest whisper of dissent Because of various girth and grain and hue. The oak flings not his acorns at the elm; The white birch shrinks not from the swarthy ash; The green plume of the pine nods to the shrub; The loftiest monarch of the realm of wood Spares not his crown in elemental storms, But shares the blows with trees of humbler growth, And stretches forth his arms to save their fall. Wild flowers festoon the feet of all alike; Green mosses grow upon the trunks of all; Sweet birds pour out their songs on every bough; Clouds drop baptismal showers of rain on each, And the broad sun floods every leaf with light. Behold them clad in Autumn's golden pomp— Their rich magnificence, of different dyes, More beautiful than royal robes, and crowns Of emperors on coronation day. But the deserted nest in silence sways Like a sad heart beneath a royal scarf; And the red tint upon the maple leaves Is colored like the fields where fell our braves In hurricanes of flame and leaden hail. I love to gaze up at the grand old trees; Their branches point like hope to Heaven serene; Their roots point to the silent world that's dead; Their grand old trunks hold towns and fleets for us, And cots and coffins for the race unborn. When at their feet their predecessors fell, Spring covered their remains with mourning moss, And wrote their epitaph in pale wood flowers, And Summer gave ripe berries to the birds To stay and sing their sad sweet requiem; And Autumn rent the garments of the trees That stood mute mourners in a field of graves, And Winter wrapped them in a winding sheet. They seemed like giants sleeping in their shrouds.