The Old Orchard Trees.
WHY cut them away? The dear old trees,
They never did aught of harm,
But scattered their perfume out to the breeze,
And sheltered the birds from the storm.
For an age they have stood on the town’s outer meads,
The skirmish and battle have braved;
Alike they have gazed on the war’s bloody deeds,
And the white flag of peace as it waved.
But you cut them away! my pleading is vain!
In their shade moves the carpenter’s hands,
I watched him to-day as he leveled his plane,
And he spoke of the architect’s plans.
Then a wave of distress in my heart flowed anew,
For dearly I love each old tree;
Ah me! many secrets are hidden from you
That the apple trees whispered to me.
I used to go by, and the sweet morning air,
Like incense, arose from the spot,
It would crowd from my heart some pain gnawing there,
While the world with its cares was forgot.
Here, I’ve heard the first news of the blue bird and dove,
And the round, silver note of the thrush,
A concert, with sweet variations of love,
Seemed pouring from tree and from bush.
I walked there to-day; as an accent profane
That falls on the heart and the ear,
I heard the harsh echo of hammer and plane,
And the pant of a mill in the rear.
So I muffled my face with the veil that I wore—
Time, that moment of pain can’t appease;
Unless like the birds from the scene I can soar,
And like them, forget the old trees.
On the Hill-top Grow the Daisies.
TO CARRIE ROGERS.
I chanced to stroll not long ago
To a green valley that you know;
For everything about the town
Was strange, and on me seemed to frown,
And so I wandered off alone,
To seek the friends from youth I’d known.
The brook came dashing down the hill,
The same old song to hum and trill;
With glances shy and kisses sweet,
It wound its ribbon at my feet,
And laughed aloud at my delight—
It was indeed a comic sight
To see me o’er the brooklet bend,
And greet again an old time friend.
So thus I sat, perhaps an hour,
Until I spied a human flower;
A little maid it seemed to be
With steps directed straight to me.
Her dress was pink, her bonnet white.
Her eyes were blue, and round, and bright,
Some daisies in her hand she held
But where they came from—would she tell?
Were questions that my eyes portrayed,
And she the answer quickly made.
“Upon the hill-top high they grow,
The path is there by which you go,
But if you get them you must climb,”
She said, unconscious of the rhyme.
I glanced along the rocky ledge;
The daisies nodded o’er the edge,
And just as far as I could see
They waved their ruffled caps to me.
Bright eyes that never had grown old
Their heart’s content to me foretold,
And I resolved the path to try
That seemed to end so near the sky;
And so I started up alone,
A way that seemed with mosses sown.
A pond’rous clod rolled on the track,
A briar reached and pulled me back,
A lizzard on the pathway played,
And half way up I paused—afraid.
“Keep on,” the little girl replied,
“A better path is near your side.”
She pulled the thorn from off my gown,
I heard the clod go plunging down,
And then she clasped with mine her hand,
And led me up to “daisy-land.”
The hours we spent together there
Were hallowed as the hours of prayer,
And when she left me in the vale
The sunlight suddenly grew pale;
But she had taught me this strange truth,
Forgot, or never learned in youth,
It seems a little song in rhyme,
“To reach the daisies, you must climb.”
Bardstown, Ky.
