Thy birthright was not given by human hands: Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields, While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him, To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, And teach the reed to utter simple airs. Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, His only foes; and thou with him didst draw The earliest furrow on the mountain-side, Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself, Thy enemy, although of reverend look, Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, Is later born than thou; and as he meets The grave defiance of thine elder eye, The usurper trembles in his fastnesses. 40 These old and friendly solitudes invite O MOTHER of a mighty race, For on thy cheeks the glow is spread Is bright as thine own sunny sky. 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, 20 ვი While children come, with cries of glee, And seek them where the fragrant grass And when, above this apple-tree, 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. 41 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; 50 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. "Who planted this old apple-tree?' The gray-haired man shall answer them: 'A poet of the land was he, 61 70 Born in the rude but good old times; "T is said he made some quaint old rhymes, On planting the apple-tree.'1 1849. ROBERT OF LINCOLN 81 1864. MERRILY Swinging on brier and weed, Snug and safe is that nest of ours, 1 Compare a letter of Bryant's written November 17, 1846 (Godwin's Life of Bryant, vol. ii, pp. 27, 28): 'I have been, and am, at my place on Long Island, planting and transplanting trees, in the mist; sixty or seventy; some for shade; most for fruit. Hereafter, men, whose existence is at present merely possible, will gather pears from the trees which I have set in the ground, and wonder what old covey-for in those days the slang terms of the present time, by the ordinary process of change in languages, will have become classical-what old covey of past ages planted them? Or they will walk in the shade of the mulberry, apricot, and cherry trees that I have set in a row beside a green lane, and think, if they think at all about the matter -for who can tell what the great-grandchildren of ours will think about-that they sprang up of themselves by the way.' The whirlwind, stand in her defence; 30 The blast as soon shall move the rock As rushing squadrons bear ye thence. And ye whose homes are by her grand Swift rivers, rising far away, Come from the depth of her green land, As mighty in your march as they; As terrible as when the rains Have swelled them over bank and bourne, With sudden floods to drown the plains And sweep along the woods uptorn. And ye who throng, beside the deep, On his long-murmuring marge of sand 40 Alice. One of your old-world stories, Such as you tell us by the winter fire, Uncle John. The story of the witch that Alice. Or water-fairies, such as you know how |