Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause,
A moment, from the bloody work of war.
These restless surges eat away the shores
Of earth's old continents; the fertile plain
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afar
In the green chambers of the middle sea,
Where broadest spread the waters and the line
Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work
Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age,
He builds beneath the waters, till, at last,
His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check
The long wave rolling from the southern pole
To break upon Japan. Thou bidd'st the fires
That smoulder under ocean, heave on high
The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks,
A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird.
The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts
With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs
Ripple the living lakes that, fringed with flowers,
Are gathered in the hollows.
Thou dost look
On thy creation and pronounce it good.
Its valleys, glorious with their summer green,
Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods,
Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join
The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.
A silvery brook comes stealing
From the shadow of its trees,
Where slender herbs of the forest stoop
Before the entering breeze.
Along those pleasant windings
I would my journey lay,
Where the shade is cool and the dew of night
Path of the flowery woodland!
Oh whither dost thou lead,
Wandering by grassy orchard grounds
Or by the open mead?
Goest thou by nestling cottage?
Goest thou by stately hall,
Where the broad elm droops, a leafy dome,
And woodbines flaunt on the wall?
THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE TREE.
By steeps where children gather
Flowers of the yet fresh year?
By lonely walks where lovers stray
Till the tender stars appear?
Or haply dost thou linger
On barren plains and bare,
Or clamber the bald mountain side
Into the thinner air?
Where they who journey upward
Walk in a weary track,
And oft upon the shady vale
With longing eyes look back?
I hear a solemn murmur,
And, listening to the sound,
I know the voice of the mighty sea,
Beating his pebbly bound.
Dost thou, oh path of the woodland!
End where those waters roar,
Like human life, on a trackless beach,
With a boundless Sea before?
THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE TREE.
YOME, 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,
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 no on,
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.
THE PLANTING 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. Oh, when its aged branches throw Thin shadows on the ground below,
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