Trees themselves are ours; Fruits are born of flowers; Peach and roughest nut were blossoms in the spring. The lusty bee knows well The news, and comes pell-mell And dances in the bloomy thicks with darksome antheming. Beneath the very burden Of planet-pressing ocean We wash our smiling cheeks in peace, a thought for meek devotion. Who shall say that flowers Dress not heaven’s own bowers? Who its love without them can fancy—or sweet floor? Who shall even dare To say we sprang not there, And came not down, that Love might bring one piece of heaven the more? Oh! pray believe that angels From those blue dominions Brought us in their white laps down, ’twixt their golden pinions. NOTES AND QUESTIONS =Biographical and Historical Note.= Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was an English poet, journalist, and essayist. He was a personal friend of Shelley and Byron, and an intimate friend of Keats. His poems and essays are marked by a delightful style. The “Nine” (stanza 7) refers to the Muses, patronesses of poetry and music, whose lord is Apollo, and who assembled on Mount Parnassus or Mount Helicon, to hold learned discussions on poetry, science, or music. =Discussion.= 1. What is a chorus? 2. Who are the singers? 3. What is the purpose of their song? 4. When you look at a flower, what things are you apt to notice about it? 5. Name a poem you have read that tells of the uses of a flower. 6. What poem that you have read in this book celebrates the color of the flower? 7. What familiar custom grows out of the belief that “unto sorrow we give smiles”? That “unto graces [we give] graces”? 8. For what purpose are flowers in “a thousand flashing hues”? 9. What things are compared in the last line of stanza 4? 10. What uses of flowers are pointed out in stanza 5? 11. In stanza 7 what is compared with the “Nine” muses? 12. Read the lines that tell what lesson the sea-weeds teach. 13. What does the last stanza suggest as a possible source and use of flowers? 14. Which stanza do you like best? =Phrases= born of sunny showers, 64, 2 sweetly voiceless, 64, 11 thread the earth, 64, 16 flashing hues, 65, 6 sickliest planting, 65, 17 Babylonian vaunting, 65, 18 reverent lips, 65, 27 death to the presuming, 65, 27 thymy glen, 65, 30 our rifled tops, 66, 4 Amazonian plains, 66, 22 comes pell-mell, 66, 27 darksome antheming, 66, 28 planet-pressing ocean, 66, 30 blue dominions, 67, 9 ’twixt their golden pinions, 67, 9 TREES JOYCE KILMER I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree; A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain.