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THE PALM-TREE.

Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm,

On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm ?
Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm?

A ship whose keel is of palm beneath,
Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath,
And a rudder of palm it steereth with.

Branches of palm are its spars and rails,
Fibres of palm are its woven sails,
And the rope is of palm that idly trails!

What does the good ship bear so well?
The cocoa-nut with its stony shell,
And the milky sap of its inner cell.

What are its jars, so smooth and fine,
But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine,
And the cabbage that ripens under the Line?

Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm?
The master, whose cunning and skill could charm
Cargo and ship from the bounteous palm.

In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft,
From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed,
And a palm thatch shields from the sun aloft !

His dress is woven of palmy strands,
And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands,
Traced with the Prophet's wise commands!

The turban folded about his head

Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid,
And the fan that cools him of palm was made.

Of threads of palm was the carpet spun
Whereon he kneels when the day is done,
And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one!

To him the palm is a gift divine,
Wherein all uses of man combine,
House and raiment and food and wine!

And, in the hour of his great release,
His need of the palm shall only cease
With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace.

“Allah il Allah!" he sings his psalm,
On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm ;
"Thanks to Allah, who gives the palm!"

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

THE HOLLY-TREE.

O READER! hast thou ever stood to see

The holly-tree?

The eye that contemplates it well perceives Its glossy leaves

Ordered by an intelligence so wise
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle, through their prickly round,
Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear, Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;

And in this wisdom of the holly-tree
Can emblems see

Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.

Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude;

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I, day by day,
Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.

And as, when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,

The holly-leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they ;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the holly-tree?

So, serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;

So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they ;

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly-tree.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

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Thy bulging arms bear as soft a cheek
As ever on lover's breast found place;
On thy waving train is a playful hold

Thou shalt never to lighter grasp persuade;
While a maiden sits in thy drooping fold,
And swings and sings in the noonday shade!

O giant strange of our southern woods,

I dream of thee still in the well-known spot, Though our vessel strains o'er the ocean floods, And the northern forest beholds thee not; I think of thee still with a sweet regret,

As the cordage yields to my playful grasp, – Dost thou spring and cling in our woodlands yet? Does the maiden still swing in thy giant clasp?

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.

FAIR PLEDGES OF A FRUITFUL TREE.

FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past

But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good night?
'Tis pity Nature brought ye forth,
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we

May read how soon things have Their end, though ne'er so brave; And after they have shown their pride Like you awhile, they glide Into the grave.

ROBERT HERRICK.

ALMOND BLOSSOM.

BLOSSOM of the almond-trees,
April's gift to April's bees,
Birthday ornament of spring,
Flora's fairest daughterling ;-
Coming when no flowerets dare
Trust the cruel outer air,
When the royal king-cup bold
Dares not don his coat of gold,
And the sturdy blackthorn spray
Keeps his silver for the May;-
Coming when no flowerets would,
Save thy lowly sisterhood,
Early violets, blue and white,
Dying for their love of light.

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COME, let us plant the apple-tree. Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; Wide let its hollow bed be made; There gently lay the roots, and there Sift the dark mould with kindly care,

And press it o'er them tenderly, As round the sleeping infant's feet We softly fold the cradle-sheet; So plant we the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree? Buds, which the breath of summer days Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;

Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,
Shall haunt, and sing, and hide her nest;
We plant, upon the sunny lea,

A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,
When we plant the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs
To load the May-wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard row,
he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;
A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,
And redden in the August noon,
And drop, when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,

While children come, with cries of glee,
And seek them where the fragrant grass
Betrays their bed to those who pass,
At the foot of the apple-tree.

And when, above this apple-tree,
The winter stars are quivering bright,
And winds go howling through the night,

Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,
Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth,

And guests in prouder homes shall see,
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine
And golden orange of the Line,
The fruit of the apple-tree.

The fruitage of this apple-tree Winds and our flag of stripe and star Shall bear to coasts that lie afar, Where men shall wonder at the view, And ask in what fair groves they grew; And sojourners beyond the sea Shall think of childhood's careless day And long, long hours of summer play, In the shade of the apple-tree.

Each year shall give this apple-tree A broader flush of roseate bloom, A deeper maze of verdurous gloom, And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower, The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.

The years shall come and pass, but we Shall hear no longer, where we lie, The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh, In the boughs of the apple-tree.

And time shall waste this apple-tree. O, when its aged branches throw Thin shadows on the ground below, Shall fraud and force and iron will Oppress the weak and helpless still? What shall the tasks of mercy be, Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears Of those who live when length of years Is wasting this apple-tree?

"Who planted this old apple-tree ?” The children of that distant day Thus to some aged man shall say; And, gazing on its mossy stem, The gray-haired man shall answer them : "A poet of the land was he,

Born in the rude but good old times; 'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes On planting the apple-tree.”

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE MAIZE.

"That precious seed into the furrow cast
Earliest in springtime crowns the harvest last."
PHOEBE CAREY.

A SONG for the plant of my own native West,
Where nature and freedom reside,

By plenty still crowned, and by peace ever blest, To the corn! the green corn of her pride!

In climes of the East has the olive been sung,
And the grape been the theme of their lays,
But for thee shall a harp of the backwoods be
strung,

Thou bright, ever beautiful maize !

Afar in the forest the rude cabins rise,
And send up their pillars of smoke,

And the tops of their columns are lost in the skies,
O'er the heads of the cloud-kissing oak ;

Near the skirt of the grove, where the sturdy arm swings

The axe till the old giant sways,

And echo repeats every blow as it rings,

Shoots the green and the glorious maize !

There buds of the buckeye in spring are the first,
And the willow's gold hair then appears,
And snowy the cups of the dogwood that burst
By the red bud, with pink-tinted tears.
And striped the bolls which the poppy holds up
For the dew, and the sun's yellow rays,
And brown is the pawpaw's shade-blossoming cup,
In the wood, near the sun-loving maize !

When through the dark soil the bright steel of the plough

Turns the mould from its unbroken bed, The ploughman is cheered by the finch on the bough,

And the blackbird doth follow his tread. And idle, afar on the landscape descried,

The deep-lowing kine slowly graze, And nibbling the grass on the sunny hillside Are the sheep, hedged away from the maize.

With springtime and culture, in martial array
It waves its green broadswords on high,
And fights with the gale, in a fluttering fray,

And the sunbeams, which fall from the sky;
It strikes its green blades at the zephyrs at noon,
And at night at the swift-flying fays,

Who ride through the darkness the beams of the

moon,

Through the spears and the flags of the Maize !

When the summer is fierce still its banners are

green,

Each warrior's long beard groweth red,

His emerald-bright sword is sharp-pointed and

keen,

And golden his tassel-plumed head.

As a host of armed knights set a monarch at

naught,

They defy the day-god to his gaze,

And, revived every morn from the battle that's

fought,

Fresh stand the green ranks of the maize !

365

But brown comes the autumn, and sear grows Ah! on Thanksgiving Day, when from East an

the corn,

And the woods like a rainbow are dressed, And but for the cock and the noontide horn Old Time would be tempted to rest. The humming bee fans off a shower of gold From the mullein's long rod as it sways, And dry grow the leaves which protecting infold The ears of the well-ripened maize !

At length Indian Summer, the lovely, doth come, With its blue frosty nights, and days still, When distantly clear sounds the waterfall's hum,

And the sun smokes ablaze on the hill! A dim veil hangs over the landscape and flood, And the hills are all mellowed in haze, While fall, creeping on like a monk 'neath his hood,

Plucks the thick-rustling wealth of the maize.

And the heavy wains creak to the barns large

and gray,

Where the treasure securely we hold,

Housed safe from the tempest, dry - sheltered away,

Our blessing more precious than gold!

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moon,

our lantern the

And long for this manna that springs from the Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her

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bright mosaics! that with storied beauty, The floor of Nature's temple tessellate, What numerous emblems of instructive duty

Your forms create !

Posthumous glories! angel-like collection!
Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth,
Ye are to me a type of resurrection
And second birth.

'Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that Were I in churchless solitudes remaining,

swingeth

And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth

A call to prayer.

Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
But to that fane, most catholic and solemn,
Which God hath planned;

To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply;

Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder, Its dome the sky.

There, as in solitude and shade I wander

Through the green aisles, or stretched upon the sod,

Awed by the silence, reverently ponder
The ways of God,

Your voiceless lips, O flowers! are living preach

ers,

Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book, Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers From loneliest nook.

Floral Apostles! that in dewy splendor
"Weep without woe, and blush without a
crime,"

O, may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender
Your lore sublime!

"Thou wert not, Solomon, in all thy glory, Arrayed," the lilies cry, "in robes like ours! How vain your grandeur! ah, how transitory Are human flowers!"

In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly artist! With which thou paintest Nature's wide-spread hall,

What a delightful lesson thou impartest
Of love to all!

Not useless are ye, flowers! though made for

pleasure;
Blooming o'er field and wave, by day and night,
From every source your sanction bids me treasure
Harmless delight.

Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary
For such a world of thought could furnish scope?
Each fading calyx a memento mori,
Yet fount of hope.

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I WILL not have the mad Clytic,
Whose head is turned by the sun;
The tulip is a courtly quean,

Whom, therefore, I will'shun;
The cowslip is a country wench,
The violet is a nun ;-
But I will woo the dainty rose,

The queen of every one.

The pea is but a wanton witch,
In too much haste to wed,
And clasps her rings on every hand ;
The wolfsbane I should dread;
Nor will I dreary rosemarye,

That always mourns the dead;
But I will woo the dainty rose,

With her cheeks of tender red.

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"THEN took the generous host A basket filled with roses. Every guest Cried, 'Give me roses!' and he thus addressed

His words to all: He who exalts them most

In song, he only shall the roses wear.'
Then sang a guest: The rose's cheeks are fair;
It crowns the purple bowl, and no one knows
If the rose colors it, or it the rose.'
And sang another: Crimson is its hue,
And on its breast the morning's crystal dew
Is changed to rubies.' Then a third replied:
'It blushes in the sun's enamored sight,

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