TO THE WILLOW-TREE THOU art to all lost love the best, When once the lover's rose is dead, Or laid aside forlorn: Then willow-garlands 'bout the head When with neglect, the lovers' bane, For their love lost, their only gain And underneath thy cooling shade, When weary of the light, The love-spent youth and love-sick maid Come to weep out the night. Robert Herrick (1591-1674] ENCHANTMENT THE deep seclusion of this forest path,— Spread dim a carpet; where the Twilight hath That every foam-white stream that, twinkling, flows, Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan. Madison Cawein [1865-1914] The Holly-Tree TREES I THINK that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed A tree that looks at God all day A tree that may in summer wear Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree. Joyce Kilmer [1886 THE HOLLY-TREE O READER! hast thou ever stood to see The eye that contemplates it well perceives. Ordered by an Intelligence so wise As might confound the Atheist's sophistries. Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen, No grazing cattle, through their prickly round, But, as they grow where nothing is to fear, Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear. I love to view these things with curious eyes, And moralize; 1407 And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree Can emblem see Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme,---One which may profit in the after-time. Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear To those who on my leisure would intrude, Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be, Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree. And should my youth-as youth is apt, I know,— Some harshness show, All vain asperities I, day by day, Would wear away, Till the smooth temper of my age should be And as, when all the summer trees are seen The Holly-leaves their fadeless hues display But when the bare and wintry woods we see, So, serious should my youth appear among So would I seem, amid the young and gay, That in my age as cheerful I might be Robert Southey [1774-1843) THE PINE THE elm lets fall its leaves before the frost, "Woodman, Spare That Tree" Green pine, unchanging as the days go by, 1409 My shelter from all winds, my own strong pine, "Tis spring, 'tis summer, still, while thou art mine. Augusta Webster [1837-1894] "WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE" WOODMAN, spare that tree! That old familiar tree, Whose glory and renown O, spare that agèd oak, Now towering to the skies! When but an idle boy I sought its grateful shade; Here, too, my sisters played. My father pressed my hand- But let that old oak stand! My heart-strings round thee cling, Here shall the wild-bird sing, And still thy branches bend. 1410 Old tree! the storm still brave! And, woodman, leave the spot; Thy axe shall harm it not. George Pope Morris [1802-1864] THE BEECH TREE'S PETITION O LEAVE this barren spot to me! Thrice twenty summers I have seen |