The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1870-01-07
UNDER The TREES.
BY THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.


>siI N lIiS Ferry street store one morn
Sick Of the smell Of the hides and the hosI-
When a barefootel girl in calico gown,
\ bit Of the country thought into the town
In the shape OF a noSegay-of roses alone
Some Of them budding. and Others were
blown.
thirst,
The bar from the door of his memory burst,
And his senses. away 10 the days that had
fied.
By the scent Of the roses moment were led
No longer he sits in his counting room heat
ed;
No longer his desk and his ledger he sees I:
He has left the close town, and is pleasantly
seated,
Happily, dreamily,
Under the trees.
GlilterS before him the Swift-fiOWing river;
The heat in the air has visible quiver;
The sheep dot the hill side with patches oi
SNOW;
The kline in the pasture are grazing below;
He sees where the sunlight, in middle-day
blaze,
maize
Lights the yellow wheat, and the tall rHsset
rye,
With "A quivering brilliance that dazzles the
eye;
Sees, perched on cut underbrush, heaped for
apyre,
The hue of the oriole deepen to fire;
While stretched in the distance, dissolving
frOm view,
Are hill tops that melt into lilac and blue;
A picture surprising all art and its touches,
Where the hand of the Master with pur-
pOes agrees.
How his glance, in rapture, its lovelineSs
clutches
Happily, .dreamily,
Under the trees.
Pleasant the hum of the bees in the clover,
The rustic OF branches his form bending
over,
The eat-bird, loud tuning her pitifuI tine,
The neighing OF horses, the lowing of kline,
The shout Of the farmers field he can 1.-THE,
And the click of the blade as they sharpen
thescythe;
The cry CT the jacketless boy who pursues,
Hat in hand, the gay butterfly, varied in
hues;
The bark of the dog who at dragOn-fiies
springs,
And, alOft in the air, the hawks Tapping of
wings,
The grasshOpper's chirrup, the katydid's
cries
All come to his ear as he listlessly lies.
Sweet sounds that in 1nugic oil ofbar-
exeelling,
His ear takes them in where his body, is
dwelling
Happily, dreamily,
Under the trees.
That was n day of delight and wonder,
While lying he shade of the maple trees un-
der
He felt the soft breeze at its froIicsOme play !;
He smelt the sweet odOr of the newly-InOwn
hay,
OF wilding blossoms in meadow and wood,
And flowers in the garden that orderly stood;
He drank of the milk fOaning fresh from
the COW;
He ate the ripe apple just pulled from the
DOugh;
And lifted his hand to where hung in his
reach,
All laden with honey, tho ruddy-cheeked
peach;
Beside him, the blackberries juicy and fresh;
Before him, the melon with OdOrOus flesh.
There he had all for,his use or his vision,
All that the wishes of mortal could seize
There where he lay in a country Elysian,
Happily, dreamiIy,
Under the trees.
What, ere his thirst for the country he slack
ems,
Too rudely from dreaming the dreamer
awakens?
The voice of the girl in the calico gown
Who brought that small bit OF the country to
town,
Is heard asking pay for the rOses-The pay?
The wretch who has chased all that vision
away?
Here were no meadows, no trees overhead;
A narrow brick street, with its stenches in
stead;
And Barnaby Barnet, with gesture grOtesque,
Goes back to the fetters of ledger and desk.
No country for him; here no green things
are grown;
His hides and his leather grow greenbacl1s
alone,
And only when heirs, with forced weeping
convey him
Kind death from all wcarisome work Civ
ing ease
viii his form find green fields; it will be
when they lay him
HelpIeSsly, dreamlessly,
Under the trees.