THE TREE'S PRAYER.

Alas!‘ tis cold and dark;

The wind all night has sung a wintry tune;

Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moon

Has beat against my bark.

Oh! when will it be spring?

The sap moves not within my withered veins;

Through all my frozen roots creep numbing pains,

That they can hardly cling.

The sun shone out last morn;

I felt the warmth through every fibre float;

I thought I heard a thrush's piping note,

Of hope and sadness born.

Then came the sea-cloud driven;

The tempest hissed through all my outstretched boughs,

Hither and thither tossed me in its snows,

Beneath the joyless heaven.

O for the joyous birds,

Which are the tongues of us, mute, longing trees!

O for the billowy odours, and the bees

Abroad in scattered herds!

The blessing of cool showers!

The gratefulness that thrills through every shoot!

The children playing round my deep-sunk root,

Shadowed in hot noon hours!

Alas! the cold clear dawn

Through the bare lattice-work of twigs around!

Another weary day of moaning sound

On the thin-shadowed lawn!

Yet winter's noon is past:

I'll stretch my arms all night into the wind,

Endure all day the chill air and unkind;

My leaves will come at last.