Oklahoma Arbor and Bird Day, Friday, March Twelfth, 1909/Part One: Arbor Day/The Trailing Arbutus
THE TRAILING ARBUTUS.
I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made
Against the bitter east their barricade,
And, guided by its sweet
Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell
The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell
Amid dry leaves and moss at my feet.
From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pines
Moaned ceaselessly overhead, the blossoming vines
Lifted their glad surprise,
While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees
His feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze,
And snow-drifts lingering under April skies.
As, pausing o'er the lonely flower I bent,
I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent,
Which yet find room,
Through care and cumber, coldness and decay,
To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day,
And make the sad earth happier for their bloom.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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