Poem by Margaret Junkin Preston

The Shade of the Trees

What are the thoughts that are stirring his breast?
 What is the mystical vision he sees?
—"Let us pass over the river, and rest
 Under the shade of the trees."

Has he grown sick of his toils and his tasks?
 Sighs the worn spirit for respite or ease?
Is it a moment's cool halt that he asks
 "Under the shade of the trees."

Is it the gurgle of waters whose flow
 Oftime has come to him, borne on the breeze,
Memory listens to, lapsing so low,
 Under the shade of the trees?

Nay—though the rasp of the flesh was so sore,
 Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these,
Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore
 Under the shade of the trees.

Caught the high psalms of ecstatic delight—
 Heard the harps harping, like soundings of seas—
Watched earth's assoiled ones, walking in white
 Under the shade of the trees.

Oh, was it strange he should pine for release,
 Touched to the soul with such transports as these,—
He who so needed the balsam of peace,
 Under the shade of the trees?

Yea, it was noblest for him—it was best
 (Questioning naught of our Father's decrees),
There to pass over the river and rest
 Under the shade of the trees!

1. The Bivouac in the Snow
2. Only a Private
3. Calling the Angels in
4. The Reapers of Lindisfarne
5. Hymn to the National Flag

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