As he went along.
Here, the oak, broad-eaved and spreading;
Here, the poplar tall;
Here, the holly, forky-leaved;
Here, the yew, for the bereaved;
Here, the chestnut, with its flowers, and its spine-bestudded ball.

Here, the cedar, palmy-branched;
Here, the hazel low;
Here, the aspen, quivering ever;
Here, the powdered sloe.
Wondrous was their form and fashion,
Passing beautiful to see
How the branches interlaced,
How the leaves each other chased,
Fluttering lightly hither, thither on the wind-aroused tree.

Then he spake to those wood-dwellers:
'Ye are like to men,
And I learn a lesson from ye
With my spirit's ken.
Like to us in low beginning,
Children of the patient earth;
Born, like us, to rise on high,
Ever nearer to the sky,
And, like us, by slow advances from the minute of your birth.

'And, like mortals, ye have uses--
Uses each his own:
Each his gift, and each his beauty,
Not to other known.
Thou, O oak, the strong ship-builder,
For thy country's good,
Givest up thy noble life,
Like a patriot in the strife,
Givest up thy heart of timber, as he poureth out his blood.

'Thou, O poplar, tall and taper,
Reachest up on high;
Like a preacher pointing upward--
Upward to the sky.
Thou, O holly, with thy berries,
Gleaming redly bright,
Comest, like a pleasant friend,
When the dying year hath end,
Comest to the Christmas party, round the ruddy fire-light.

'Thou, O yew, with sombre branches,
And dark-veiled head--
Like a monk within the church-yard,
When the prayers are said,
Standing by the newly-buried
In the depth of thought--
Tellest, with a solemn grace,
Of the earthly dwelling-place,
Of the soul to live for ever--of the body come to nought,

'Thou, O cedar, storm-enduring,
Bent with years, and old,
Standest with thy broad-eaved branches,
Shadowing o'er the mould;
Shadowing o'er the tender saplings,
Like a patriarch mild,
When he lifts his hoary head,
And his hands a blessing shed,
On the little ones around him--on the children of his child.

'And the light, smooth-barked hazel,
And the dusky sloe,
Are the poor men of the forest--
Are the weak and low.
Yet unto the poor