SPIRIT OF THE TREES.

Let us wave our branches gently

With a murmur low and loving;

He will say we sang him quaintly

Some old ballad, sweetly moving.

‘ Tis of all the ways the surest

To awake a poet's fancies,

For he loves these things the purest —

Sigh of leaves, and scent of pansies.

He has loved us, we will love him,

And will cheer his hour of sadness,

Spirits, wave your boughs above him

To a measure of soft gladness.