Eliza Lanesford Cushing (17947–1886)

OLD trees, I love your shade,

Though not on banks with wild flowers all bedight

Falls through your trembling boughs the chequered light,

As in some forest glade

Where woos the murmuring bee.

Yet, ye to me do bring

Thoughts of the breezy hill, the free green wood,

The gushing stream that over fragments rude

Its silvery foam doth fling,

In wild fantastic play.

There ’s music in the sound,

O verdant elms! of your green whispering leaves.

Music my spirit loves, and yet it grieves

That ye should here be found,

Soiled with the city’s dust.

Here, amid pent-up streets,

Where never the glad tones of Nature’s voice

Steal in to soothe the harsh discordant noise,

The wearied ear that greets

With ceaseless jar and din.

Here, rude hands have marred

Your stately forms and uncouth objects piled

Around your trunks, where should have gaily smiled

Banks with the primrose starred,

Or bright anemone.

Yet, yet to me ye are

A joy and a delight for ever new,

Lovely to sense and thought is your soft hue,

Or e’en your branches bare

When Winter rules the year.