ACACIA TREE

All the trees and bushes of the garden

Display their bright new green.

But above them all, still bare,

The great old acacia stands,

His solitary bent black branches stark

Against the garden and the sky.

It is as though those other thoughtless shrubs,

The winter over, hastened to rejoice

And clothe themselves in spring's new finery,

Heedless of all the iron time behind them.

But he, older and wiser, stronger and sadder of heart,

Remembers still the cruel winter, and knows

That in some months that death will come again;

And, for a season, lonelily meditates

Above his lighter companions’ frivolity.

Till some late sunny day when, breaking thought,

He'll suddenly yield to the fickle persuasive sun,

And over all his rough and writhing boughs

And tiniest twigs

Will spread a pale green mist of feathery leaf,

More delicate, more touching than all the verdure

Of the younger, slenderer, gracefuller plants around.

And then, when the leaves have grown

Till the boughs can scarcely be seen through their crowded plumes,

There will softly glimmer, scattered upon him, blooms,

Ivory-white in the green, weightlessly hanging.