'Horse Sense' in Verses Tense by Walt Mason - HTML preview

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PLANTING A TREE

TO be in line with worthy folk, you soon must plant an elm or oak, a beech or maple fair to see, a single or a double tree. When winter’s storms no longer roll, go, get a spade and dig a hole, and bring a sapling from the woods, and show your neighbors you’re the goods. What though with years you’re bowed and bent, and feel your life is nearly spent? The tree you plant will rear its limbs, and there the birds will sing their hymns, and in its cool and grateful shade the girls will sip their lemonade; and lovers there on moonlight nights will get Dan Cupid dead to rights; and fervid oaths and tender vows will go a-zipping through its boughs. And folks will say, with gentle sigh, “Long years ago an ancient guy, whose whiskers brushed against his knee, inserted in the ground this tree. ’Twas but a little sapling then; and he, the kindest of old men, was well aware that he’d be dead, long ere its branches grew and spread, but still he stuck it in the mould, and never did his feet grow cold. Oh, he was wise and kind and brave—let’s place a nosegay on his grave!”