Lying alone beneath the greenness

And the dim cool reach

Of lofty pines,

The trees lean low and sing to me,

Softly, softly...

Winds of the high blue

Go lightly through

Their furthest tips,

And the leafy boughs

Sway lazily. and whisper me

Soft names. The tall trunks

Move in the breeze.

Some tremor of their windy height

Comes down to me. The sun

Flecks through the moving leaves

And on the dark ground weaves

A curious shifting pattern.

Hot from the forests far around

The wind breathes slow and fragrantly...

Scented with heady pine,

Trees are wondrous things,

Glorious great, upstanding, living things -

The green irregular plan *

Of leaves and boughs

That lift to the deep sky,

Fretted against the heaven's blue

In a lovely and an intricate design

The round column of the trunk

As straight and high

As a strong pillar in an olden temple -

The rough texture of the shaggy bark

And the long white roots

Creeping with sure blind fingers

Under the dark earth

To find rich strength and life.

Strength of the tree's white heart

Builds homes

Shapes lines of mighty sailing ships,

Is wrought to chairs

And doors and shelves,

And countless things that fill men's homes.

And some trees come at last to fire,

Go in bright flame and cloudy smoke,

Swirl red and faint and red again,

Flaunt banner-like, go proud and higher,

Escape at last,

These trees that never die,

To the free air and the wide sky.

What lovelier thing

Ever gave God to man than trees?

The slim white birches stand

Like girls of ivory

In some dim forest aisle,

Bright lines of delicate white

Rising to tender loaves

And swaying tops.

And apple-orchards in the spring -

Can memory hold dearer thing

Than gnarled gray trees

With fragrant blossoms

Clustered pale-pink on purest white,

in some old apple-orchard,

Still and sweet?

And the stately pine, remembered against a hill,

And the dark coolness

Of the cedar and the fir -

Mysterious trees, of low and prayerful murmurings.

Trees are like men:

All. kinds grow side by side,

Beech, and the strong oak, spreading wide,

Tall poplar, and the maple, and the pine.

All turn to the same sun

For warmth and light,

All drink the same cool, welcome rain.

All move to the same great wind,

And all stir slowly through the living night.