So while we plant we’ll learn to bend
And hold our ground, tho’ storms descend
Throughout our life, and lightnings rend,
And clouds pour down the rain.
Then let us plant these trees between
A graceful spruce in living green,
That e’en in winter days is seen
Like changeless springtime still:
And so may you as years go by,
And winter comes and snowflakes fly,
Be yet in heart, and mind and eye,
Like changeless springtime still.
Bring out the spade and hie away,
And let us plant a tree today
While skies are bright and hearts are gay,
And April breezes blow.
In other days ’neath April skies,
Around this tree may joyful cries
And happy children’s songs arise,
While April breezes blow.
D. T. Williamson.
A NATION’S GREATNESS
What makes a nation truly great?
Not strength of arms, nor men of state,
Nor vast domains, by conquest won,
That knew not rise nor set of sun;
Nor sophist’s schools, nor learned clan,
Nor laws that bind the will of man,—
For these have proved, in ages past,
But futile dreams that could not last;
And they that boast of such today,
Are fallen, vanquished in the fray,
Their glory mingled with the dust,
Their archives stained with crime and lust;
And all that breathed of pomp and pride,
Like the untimely fig, has died.
One thing, alone, restrains, exalts
A nation and corrects its faults;
One thing, alone, its life can crown
And give its destiny renown.
That nation, then, is truly great,
That lives by love, and not by hate;
That bends beneath the chastening rod,
That owns the truth, and looks to God!
Edwin Garnett Riley.
THANKSGIVING
My heart gives thanks for many things—
For strength to labor day by day,
For sleep that comes when darkness wings
With evening up the eastern way.
I give deep thanks that I’m at peace
With kith and kin and neighbors, too;
Dear Lord, for all last year’s increase,
That helped me strive and hope and do.
My heart gives thanks for many things;
I know not how to name them all.
My soul is free from frets and stings,
My mind from creed and doctrine’s thrall.
For sun and stars, for flowers and streams,
For work and hope and rest and play,
For empty moments given to dreams—
For these my heart gives thanks today.
William Stanley Braithwaite.