The elder and the alder much delight in swamps to grow.
The cedar also likes the touch of water at its toe.
The sweet gum and the cypress are in Dixie’s forests found.
Live oaks their mossy beards hang far to canebreaks on the ground.
The evergreen and long-leafed pine lift high their spreading arms;
Spring now endows their plumey spines with new and pleasing charms.
In May old dark green needles show a bushy background there—
While new light shoots upstanding, grow like Christmas candles’ flare.
Of beauty out-of-doors in Spring, of trees like these, and more,
Of flowers and birds that mate and sing, old Earth has still full store.