And as He shades us from the glare
He minds us, too, in cold;
And glazes winter leaves with care
To make them shine like gold.

The holly leaves, they all reflect

The light from bank and hedge, And ivies that the walls protect Make gold their every ledge.

But ivy does not lend her leaves
To wall and tor alone,

She rambles through the woods and weaves
Her wreaths on trunk and stone.

It thrills my heart that God should choose
To make the winter bright,

And fear lest we poor mortals lose

One single ray of light.

Beatrice Chase.

THE HAUNTED OAK

Pray, why are you so bare, so bare,

Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;

And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
Runs a shudder over me?

My leaves were green as the best, I trow,

And sap ran free in my veins,

But I saw in the moonlight dim and weird
A guiltless victim's pains.

I bent me down to hear his sigh;

I shook with his gurgling moan,

And I trembled sore when they rode away,
And left him here alone.

They'd charged him with the old, old crime,
And set him fast in jail:

Oh, why does the dog howl all night long,
And why does the night wind wail?

He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath,
And he raised his hand to the sky;
But the beat of hoofs smote on his ear,
And the steady tread drew nigh.

Who is it rides by night, by night,

Over the moonlit road?

And what is the spur that keeps the pace,
What is the galling goad?

And now they beat at the prison door, "Ho, keeper, do not stay!

We are friends of him whom you hold within, And we fain would take him away

"From those who ride fast on our heels
With mind to do him wrong;

They have no care for his innocence,
And the rope they bear is long."

They have fooled the jailer with lying words,
They have fooled the man with lies;
The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,
And the great door open flies.

Now they have taken him from the jail,
And hard and fast they ride,

And the leader laughs low down in his throat,
As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,

And the doctor one of white,

And the minister, with his oldest son,

Was curiously bedight.

Oh, foolish man, why weep you now?

'Tis but a little space,

And the time will come when these shall dread

The mem'ry of your face.

I feel the rope against my bark,

And the weight of him in my grain,
I feel in the throe of his final woe
The touch of my own last pain.

And never more shall leaves come forth
On a bough that bears the ban;

I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead,
From the curse of a guiltless man.

And ever the judge rides by, rides by,
And goes to hunt the deer,
And ever another rides his soul

In the guise of a mortal fear.

And ever the man he rides me hard,

And never a night stays he;

For I feel his curse as a haunted bough,

On the trunk of a haunted tree.

Paul Laurence Dunbar.

ELEGY

One thing, alas! More fleeting have I seen
Than wither'd leaves driv'n by the autumn gust:
Yea, evanescent as the whirling dust

Is man's brief passage o'er this mortal scene!

Chisato.

Forest was planted above forest and destroyed, as if Nature were ever repeating, undoing the work she had so industriously done, and burying it.

Of course this destruction was creation, progress in the march of beauty through death. How quickly these old monuments excite and hold the imagination! We see the old stone stumps budding and blossoming and waving in the wind as magnificent trees, standing shoulder to shoulder, branches interlacing in grand varied round-headed forests; see the sunshine of morning and evening gilding their mossy trunks and at high noon spangling on the thick glossy leaves of the magnolia, filtering through translucent canopies of linden and ash, and falling in mellow patches on the ferny floor; see the shining after rain,

breathe the exhaling fragrance, and hear the winds and birds and the murmur of brooks and insects. We watch them from season to season; see the swelling buds when the sap begins to flow in the spring, the opening leaves and blossoms, the ripening of summer fruits, the colors of autumn, and the maze of leafless branches and sprays in winter; and we see the sudden oncome of the storms that overwhelmed them.

One calm morning at sunrise I saw the oaks and pines in Yosemite Valley shapen by an earthquake, their tops swishing back and forth and every branch and needle shuddering as if in distress like the frightened, screaming birds. One may imagine the trembling, rocking, tumultuous waving of those ancient Yellowstone woods, and the terror of their inhabitants when the first foreboding shocks were felt, the sky grew dark, and rock-laden floods began to roar. But though they were close pressed and buried, cut off from sun and wind, all their happy leaf-fluttering and waving done, other currents coursed through them, fondling and thrilling every fibre, and beautiful wood was replaced by beautiful stone. Now their rocky sepulchres are partly open, and show forth the natural beauty of death. John Muir.

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

A bard, dear muse, unapt to sing. H. Luttrell

A deep groove in the city's stony face. Samuel Henry Marcus
A flower was offer'd to me. William Blake

Ah, how sublime. Basho

A hundred autumns fallen in fire. Laurence Binyon

Along the waste, a great way off, the pines. Archibald Lampman
And forth they pass with pleasure, forward led. Edmund Spenser
And where are there more lovely things. Anon

A pine-tree stood alone on. Heinrich Heine

A shrinking, frightened creature in despair. Willa Sibert Cather
As sunbeams stream through liberal space. Ralph Waldo Emerson
At Loschwitz above the city. Amy Levy

A wind sways the pines. George Meredith
A woman is a branchy tree. James Stephens

A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune. Percy Bysshe Shelley
At evening I came to the wood, and threw myself. Richard Le Gallienne
Beneath the ancient beeches, cloth of gold. Marian Warner Wildman
Borne from the heavens, a leaf on the wind. Dorothea Lawrence Mann
Come into the close shadow of the wood. Arthur Symons

Day after day I travel down. Philip Henry Savage

Dreamy, gloomy, friendly trees. Herbert Trench

E'en when on earth the thund'ring gods held sway. Narihira
Eighty years have passed, and more. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Ere, in the northern gale. William Cullen Bryant
Fair pledges of a fruitful tree. Robert Herrick

Green is the plane-tree in the square. Amy Levy

From Bleymard after dinner, although it was. R. L. Stevenson
Green boughs of home, that come between. Ethelwyn Wetherald
Grow, grow, thou little tree. Arthur Upson

Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good. Cowley
Hast thou not seen a tree upon a hill. T. Chatterton

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Here is a quiet place where one may dream. Archibald Lampman

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Fair tree, for thy delightful shade. Anne, Countess of Winchilsea
First, when all the boughs, still heavy-laden. William Rose Benét
Forest was planted above forest. John Muir

For my heart had a touch of the woodland time. Robert Browning

For trees, you see, rather conceal themselves in daylight. Algernon

Blackwood

He sang as if the heavens held only two things. James Oppenheim
He smelt the earth and trees and flowers. Algernon Blackwood
He who in dying blessed the peaceful trees. Arthur Upson
High grew the snow beneath the low-hung sky. Isabella Valancey Crawford 155
I do not count the hours I spend.
I do not want painters to tell me.
I dug, beneath the cypress shade.
If I could stand in such a plain. Philip Henry Savage
I have seen all things pass. Fiona Macleod.

Ralph Waldo Emerson .
Ruskin
Thomas Love Peacock

I heard a wood thrush in the dusk. Sara Teasdale,

I heard his step upon the moss: Madison Cawein

I know five poplars on an inland hill. "Centaur"

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