Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

ERE are old trees, tall oaks, and gnarled pines,

That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground

Was never touch’d by spade, and flowers spring up

Unsown, and die ungather’d. It is sweet

To linger here, among the flitting birds

And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks and winds

That shake the leaves, and scatter as they pass

A fragrance from the cedars thickly set

With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades—