Page:The Poems of Henry Abbey.djvu/278

 Oh! might I praise your beauty as I would

With splendors of the high, impassioned pen

That, at a touch, transmits the salient good,

And, to the spirit, makes it live again!

So Dante wrote of Beatrice divine,

So Petrarch wrote of Laura, and so he,

Shakespeare, made even more real Rosaline,

Miranda, Juliet, Hermione.

Had I the gifts the master poets had,

I should compose a ring of golden verse

And in it set you, Diamond,&mdash;all too glad

Such jeweler to be,&mdash;and thus rehearse

To the whole world, and for all time renew,

The excellence that sways me and is you.

do we plant when we plant the tree?

We plant the ship, which will cross the sea.

We plant the mast to carry the sails;

We plant the planks to withstand the gales&mdash;

The keel, the keelson, and beam and knee;

We plant the ship when we plant the tree.

What do we plant when we plant the tree?

We plant the houses for you and me.

We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors,

We plant the studding, the lath, the doors,

The beams and siding, all parts that be;

We plant the house when we plant the tree.

What do we plant when we plant the tree?

A thousand things that we daily see;

We plant the spire that out-towers the crag,

We plant the staff for our country's flag,

We plant the shade, from the hot sun free;

We plant all these when we plant the tree.