Do ye remember, or do ye forget,
O silent and sufficing ones--ye Trees,
That take and pass the storm as summber breeze?
The willing soil, the air, is in your debt,
The very waters under earth are set
To serve to you all things that best do please!
Wherefore, ye stand erect in regal ease,
And parley not with fears nor with regret. From you the year has date; in you it ends--
Forever flows and ebbs in leafy green;
Fain would I know (and yet shall never know!)
If, now, the spirit in you looks serene,
Toward summers yet to be, or, blessing, bends
Above the shedded leaves of long ago!