You trace your lineage afar, Back to the heroes of a war Fought that a country might be free; Yea, farther--to a stormy sea Where winter's angry billows tossed, O'er which your Pilgrim Fathers crossed. Nay, more--through yellow, dusty tomes You trace your name to English homes Before the distant, unknown West Lay open to a world's behest; Yea, back to days of those Crusades When Turk and Christian crossed their blades, You point with pride to ancient names, To powdered sires and painted dames; You boast of this--your family tree; Now listen, stranger, unto me: When armored knights and gallant squires, Your own belovèd, honored sires, Were in their infants' blankets rolled, My fathers' youngest sons were old; When they broke forth in infant tears My fathers' heads were crowned with years, Yea, ere the mighty Saxon host Of which you sing had touched the coast, Looked back as far as you look now. Yea, when the Druids trod the wood, My venerable fathers stood And gazed through misty centuries As far as even Memory sees. When Britain's eldest first beheld The light, my fathers then were eld. You of the splendid ancestry, Who boast about your family tree, Consider, stranger, this of mine-- Bethink the lineage of a Pine. DOUGLAS MALLOCH IDEALISTS Brother Tree: Why do you reach and reach? Do you dream some day to touch the sky? Brother Stream: Why do you run and run? Do you dream some day to fill the sea? Brother Bird: Why do you sing and sing? Do you dream-- _Young Man: Why do you talk and talk and talk?_ ALFRED KREYMBORG "DRAW CLOSER, O YE TREES" O quiet cottage room, Whose casements, looking o'er the garden-close, Are hid in wildings and the woodbine bloom And many a clambering rose, Sweet is thy light subdued, Gracious and soft, lingering upon my book, As that which shimmers through the branchèd wood Above some dreamful nook! Leaning within my chair, Through the curtain I can see the stir-- The gentle undulations of the air-- Sway the dark-layered fir; And, in the beechen green, Mark many a squirrel romp and chirrup loud; While far beyond, the chestnut-boughs between, Floats the white summer cloud. Through the loopholes in the leaves, Upon the yellow slopes of far-off farms, I see the rhythmic cradlers and the sheaves Gleam in the binders' arms. At times I note, nearby, The flicker tapping on some hollow bole; And watch the sun, against the sky, The fluting oriole;