The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-12-27
r.From Putnam's Magazine tor January.
Among the Trees.
sY WILLIAM CULLEN Bryant.

The pure sir, which breathe with gladDess, pass
In pushts Der your delicate lungs, your leaves,
All uper5oyed? When on your Wnter-sleep
The sun shines warm, have ye no dreams of Spring!
And when the glorious spring time comes at last,
Have We no joy of all your bursting buds,
And fragrant blooms, and melody OF birds
To which your young leaves SILVER! Do ye strive
And wreste with the wind. yet know it not
Feel We no glory in your strength when he,
The exhausted Blusterer, flies beyond the hills,
And leaves you stronger yet! Or have We not
A sense Of loss when he has stripped your leaves,
Yet tender, and has splintered your fair boughs
Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloud
And rends you, fall unfeltl Do there not run
Strange shudderiDgs through your fbres when the
Ia raised against you, and the shining blade
Dealt blow on blow, until, with all their boughs,
Your submits waver and ye fall 10 earth,
Know We no sadness when the hurricane
Has swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stems
Asundef. or has wrenched, from out the soil,
The miahtiest with their circles OF strong roots,
And piled the ruin all along his pathI
Nav, doubt we not that under the rough rind,
in tba green veins Of these fair growths of earth,
There dwells a nature that receives delight
From. all the gentle processes Of life,
Ard ehrinks from loss Of being. Dim and faint
My be the sense of pleasure and of pain,
As no cur dreams; but, hsply, real still.
Our sorrows touch you not. We watch beside
The beds of those who languisb or who die,
And minister In sadness. while our hearts
Offer perpetual prayer for life and ease
And health 10 the beloved sufferers.
But We, while anxious fear and fainting hope
Are In our chambers, ye rejoice without.
The funeral goes forth silent train
Moyes slowly from the desoste home: our hearts
Are breaking as we lay away the loved,
Whom we shall see no more, In their last rest,
Their little cells within the burial.place.
Ye have no part In this distress; for still
The February sunshine sleeps your boughs
And tnts the buds and swes the leaves within
While the song sparrow, warblng from her perch.
Tells you that Spring is near. The wind of May
Is sweet with breath Of orchards, in whose boughs
The bees and every insect OF the cir ..
Make perpetual murmur OF delight,
And by whose flowers the humming- bird hangs
In air, and draws their sweets and darts away.
The linden, In the fervors Of July,
Huns with a louder concert. When the wind
Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime,
As wnen some master hand exulting sweeps
The keys of some great organ, ye give forth
The music Of the woodland depths. hymn
OF gladness and of thanks. The hermit-thrush
Pipe his sweet note to make your arches ring.
The faithful robin, from the wayside elm,
Carols all day TO cheer his sitting mate.
And when the autumn comes, the kings OF earth,
In all their majesty, are not arrayed
As ye ere, clothing the broad mountain side,
And spotting the smooth wales with red and gold.
While, swaying 10 the sudden breeze, We fling
Your nuts 10 earth, and the brisk squirrel comes
To gather them, and bsrks with childish glee,
And scampers with them to his hollow oak.
Thus. rs the seasons pass, We keep alive
The sheerfuness Of nature, till in time
The constant misery which wrings the heart
Relents, and we rejoice with you again,
And glory in your beauty; till once more
We LOOK with pleasure on your vanished leaves,
That eayly glance 10 sunshine, and can hear.
Deliqhteh, the soft answer which your boughs
Utter in whispers to the babbling brook.
lie have no history. cannot know
Who, when the hillside trees were hewn away,
Baply two centuries since, babe spare this oak,
Lesnng TO shade, with his irregular arms,
Low.bent and long, the fount thatfrom his roots
Slips taTough bed OF crosses toward the bay.
/ know not who. but thank him that he left
The tree TO flourish where the acorn fell,
And iOin these later days to that far time
While yet the Indian hunter drew the bow
IL the dim woods. and the white woodman first
Opened these fields TO sunshine, turned the soil
And slrewed the wheat An unremembered Past
Br0ods. like presence, mid the long gray
bouehs
OF this old tree, which has outlved so long
The fitting generations of mankind.
Ye have no history. ] ask in vain
Who planted on the slope this lofty group
OF ancient pear trees that with spring time burst
Into such breadth of bloom. One bears q scar
Where the quick lightning scored its trunk, yet
Il feels the breath of spring. and every May
Is white with blossoms. Who il was that laid
Their infant roots in earth, and tenderly
Cherished the delicate sprays, ask in vain.
Yet bless the unknown hand TO which owe
This annual festival of bees, these songs
OF birds within their leafy screen, these shouts
OF JOY from children gathering mp the fruit
Shaken In August from the willing boughs.
Ye that my hands have planted, or have
spared,
Beside the way, or in the orchard ground,
Or in the open meadow, ye whose boughs
With very summer spread wider shade,
Whose herd In coming years shall lie at rest
Beneath your noontde shelter who shall pluck
Your ripened fruit? who grave, as was the wont
OF simple pastoral ages, on the rind
OF my smooth beeches some beloved name?
Idly ask yet may the eyes that look
Upon you, in your later, nobler growth,
Look also on a nober age than ours:
An age when, in the eternal strife between
Evil and Good, the Power OF Good shall win
A grander mastery; when kings no more
Shall summon millions from the pillow to learn
The trade of slaughter. and of popular realms
Make camps Of war when in our younger land
The hand Of ruffisn Violence that now
Is !nsoleDtly raised TO smite, shall fail
UEnerved before the calm rebuke of law,
Ard Fraud, his sly confederate, shrink, in shame,
Back to his covert, and forego his prey.
''THAr's MY WIFE THAT STOPS IN THIS Room
WITH ME"-The habitues of one of our fsvorite
hotels we're very much amused the other day.