Lines worth knowing:

THE EVERGREEN PINE

The rivers to the ocean flow,
The sunsets burn and flee;
The stars come to the darkling sky,
The violets to the lea;
But I stay in one lone sweet place
And dream of the blue sea.
The harebell blooms and is away,
The salmon spawns and dies;
The oriole nests and is on the wing,
Calling her sweet good-bys....
But I, when blossom and fruit are gone,
Yearn, steadfast, to the skies.
I am a prayer and a praise,
A sermon and a song;
My leaf-chords thrill at the wind's will
To nocturnes deep and strong;
Or the sea's far lyric melodies
Echo and prolong.
When April newly decks my form
In silken green attire,
I light my candles, tall and pale,
With holy scarlet fire—
And straight their incense mounts to God,
Pure as a soul's desire.
My branches poise upon the air,
Like soft and level wings;
My trembling leaves the wind awakes
To a harp of emerald strings—
Or thro' the violet silences
A golden vesper sings.
I am a symbol and a sign....
Thro' blue or rose or gray;
Thro' rain and dark; thro' storms of night;
Thro' opaline lights of day—
Slowly and patiently up to God
I make my beautiful way.
—Higginson.

ENSHRINED

"My son" ....
Her tone was soft with wistfulness—
"Would now be twenty-one ...
If he had lived."
A silence fell ...
And thought sped swiftly back
Through years of fulness and content—
Save for one gray thread of loneliness.
For she had never parted company
With him,
Who left her arms bereft
Of her man-child.
"And so,"
Again she spoke,
"I watch the youths
Who grow apace with him in years,
And all their winning traits
I seize upon, invest my son with them,
And love all youth the more
Because I too
Hold in my heart
A vivid memory."
Again the silence fell ...
I turned away—
For I had glimpsed the sanctuary
Of a mother's soul,
In which a spirit was enshrined
For all Eternity.
—Adele M. Ballard
Long hours we toiled up through the solemn wood,
Beneath moss-banners stretched from tree to tree;
At last upon a barren hill we stood,
And, lo, above loomed Majesty.
—Herbert Bashford

NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAIN