THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE.

THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE.

COME, 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,
And press it o'er them tenderly,
As, round the sleeping infant's feet
We softly fold the cradle-sheet;
So plant we the apple-tree.

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 noon, 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.

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,
Shall fraud and force and iron will
Oppress the weak and helpless still?

What shall the tasks of Mercy be,
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears
Of those who live when length of years
Is wasting this apple-tree?

"Who planted this old apple-tree?"
The children of that distant day
Thus to some aged man shall say;
And, gazing on its mossy stem,
The gray-haired man shall answer them:
"A poet of the land was he,

Born in the rude but good old times;

"Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes On planting the apple-tree."

William Cullen Bryant.

A PICTURE.

THE farmer sat in his easy chair

Smoking his pipe of clay,

While his hale old wife, with busy care,

Was clearing the dinner away;

A sweet little girl, with fine blue eyes,
On her grandfather's knee was catching flies.

The old man laid his hand on her head,
With a tear on his wrinkled face,

He thought how often her mother, dead,
Had sat in the self-same place ;

As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye,
"Don't smoke!" said the child; "how it makes

you cry!”

The house-dog lay stretched out on the floor,

Where the shade after noon used to steal; The busy old wife, by the open door,

Was turning the spinning-wheel;

And the old brass clock on the mantletree
Had plodded along to almost three.—

Still the farmer sat in his easy chair,
While close to his heaving breast
The moistened brow and the cheek so fair

Of his sweet grandchild were pressed;
His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay-
Fast asleep were they both, that summer day !

Charles G. Eastman.

ON THE SHORES OF TENNESSEE.

"MOVE my arm-chair, faithful Pompey,
In the sunshine bright and strong,
For this world is fading, Pompey,-
Massa won't be with you long;

And I fain would hear the south wind
Bring once more the sound to me
Of the wavelets softly breaking

On the shores of Tennessee.

"Mournful, though, the ripples murmur, As they still the story tell How no vessels float the banner

That I've loved so long and well.

I shall listen to their music,

Dreaming that again I see

Stars and Stripes on sloop and shallop
Sailing up the Tennessee.

"And, Pompey, while old Massa's waiting
For death's last dispatch to come,
If that exiled, starry banner

Should come proudly sailing home, You shall greet it, slave no longer! Voice and hand shall both be free That shout and point to Union colors On the waves of Tennessee."

"Massa's berry kind to Pompey;
But ole darkey's happy here,

Where he's tended corn and cotton
For 'ese many a long gone year.
Over yonder Missis' sleeping-

No one tends her grave like me;

Mebbie she would miss the flowers
She used to love in Tennessee.

"Pears like she was watching, Massa,
If Pompey should beside him stay;