Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Arbor Day/Planting of the Apple Tree

by William Cullen Bryant

For other versions of this work, see The Planting of the Apple-Tree.

THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE TREE.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

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’erlow with mirth.
Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth,
And guests in prouder homes shall see,
Heaped with the grape of Cithra’s vine
And golden orange of the lime.
The fruit of the 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.”