The Maple

OH, tenderly deepen the woodland glooms,
And merrily sway the beeches ;
Breathe delicately the willow blooms,
And the pines rehearse new speeches ;
The elms toss high, till they brush the sky,
Pale catkins the yellow birch launches,
But the tree I love, all the greenwood above,
Is the maple of sunny branches.

Let who will sing of the hawthorn in spring,
Or the late-leaved linden in summer ;
There's a word may be for the locust-tree,
That delicate, strange new-comer ;
But the maple, it glows with the tint of the rose
When pale are the spring-time regions,
And its towers of flame from afar proclaim
The advance of winter's legions.

And a greener shade there never was made
Than its summer canopy sifted ;
And many a day, as beneath it I lay,
Has my memory backward drifted
To a pleasant lane I may walk not again,
Leading over a fresh green hill,
Where a maple stood, just clear of the wood —
And oh, to be near it still !