C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Anna Callender Brackett (1836–1911)

O TREES, all a-throb and a-quiver

With the stirring pulse of the spring,

Your tops so misty against the blue,

With the buds where the green not yet looks through.

I know the beauty the days will bring,

But your cloudy tops are a wonderful thing!

Like the first faint streak of the dawning,

Which tells that the day is nigh;

Like the first dear kiss of the maiden,

So absolute, though so shy;

Like the joy divine of the mother

Before her child she sees—

So faint, so dear, and so blessed

Are your misty tops, O trees!

I can feel the delicate pulses

That stir in each restless fold

Of leaflets and bunches of blossoms—

The life that never grows old:

Yet wait, ah wait, though they woo you—

The sun, the rain-drops, the breeze;

Break not too soon into verdure,

O misty, beautiful trees!