—Annie Wakely Jackson.

PLEA OF THE YOUNG EVERGREENS.

We hide the stony mountain side with green,

And grow in beauty where the plain was bare;

We cling to crannies of the walled ravine,

And through faint valleys waft a strengthening air.

On coastings gray we stay the creeping sand;

We lift our spears and halt the shifting dunes;

Our bounteous youth makes glad the scanty land,

While it transforms rank fens, and salt lagunes.