B

trees

ENDING 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 for climbing,
That for rest is good;
Beckoning friends, companions,
Sentinels, they are;

Good to live and die with,

Good to greet afar.

Take a poet with you

When you seek their shade

One whose verse-like music

In a tree is made;

Yet your mind will wander

From his rarest lay,

Lost in rhythmic measures

That above you sway.

Eucy Larcom

H

The Bugle Call

AVE you heard the troops a-marching?

(Marching, marching)

O my soul, to hear the bugle and the long roll of the drum!

Up the hill and down the valley I can hear his step among them.

Before you see his blue coat, I will know my love has come.

I can see the troops a-marching.

(Slowly, slowly)

As they near, the pale leaves tremble at the coming of the band;

There is neither sound nor footfall, neither bugleblast nor drum-call,

A silent host they pass from sight into a silent land.

Nay, I hear the bugle calling.

(Calling, calling)

O the footsteps, of my soldier, I can count them as they fall.

As I time mine to the echo, over hill and over valley, I am marching, marching ever to that unseen bugle's call!

Mary Stewart Cutting

Who went and who return not. Say not so! 'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; No bar of endless night exiles the brave.

Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! For never shall their aureoled presence lack: I see them muster in a gleaming row,

With ever youthful brows that nobler show: We find in our dull road their shining track; In every nobler mood

We feel the orient of their spirit glow,

Part of our life's unalterable good

Of all our saintlier aspiration:

They come transfigured back,

Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,

Beautiful evermore, and with the rays

Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!

J. B. Bowell

It Is Not Always May

No hay pájaros en los nidos de antafio.-Spanish Proverb.

HE sun is bright—the air is clear,

The darting swallows soar and sing, And from the stately elms I hear The blue-bird prophesying Spring.

So blue yon winding river flows,

It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where, waiting till the west wind blows,
The freighted clouds at anchor lie.

All things are new-the buds, the leaves,
That gild the elm tree's nodding crest,
And even the nest beneath the eaves-
There are no birds in last year's nest!

All things rejoice in youth and love,
The fulness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
The melting tenderness of night.

Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay,
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,

For O it is not always May!

Henry W. Longfellow