Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Arbor Day/Forest Trees

by Nancy Minerva Haynes Miller

FOREST TREES.

Children have you seen the budding
Of the trees in valleys low?
Have you watched it creeping, creeping,
Up the mountain, soft and slow?
Weaving there a plush-like mantle,
Brownish, grayish, reddish green,
Changing, changing—daily, hourly,
Till it smiles in emerald sheen?

Have you watched the shades so varied,
From the graceful little white birch.
Faint and tender, to the balsam’s
Evergreen, so dark and rich?
Have you seen the quaint mosaics,
Gracing all the mountain-sides,
Where they, mingling’, intertwining.
Sway like softest mid-air tides?

Have you seen the autumn frostings.
Spread in all the leafage bright,—
Frostings of the rarest color.
Red and yellow, dark and light?
Have you seen the glory painted
On the mountain, valley, hill.
When the landscape, all illumined.
Blazes forth his taste and skill?

Have you seen the foliage dropping,
Tender cling, as loth to leave
Mother-trees that taught them deftly
All their warp and woof to weave?
Have you seen the leafless branches
Tossing wildly ’gainst the blue?
Have you seen the soft gray beauty
Of their wintry garments’ hue?

Have you thought the resurrection
Seen in nature year by year
Is a symbol of our rising
In a higher, holier sphere?
Children, ye are buds maturing;
Make your autumn rich and grand.
That your winter be a passage
Through the gates to Glory-land.

—Mother Truth’s Melodies.