In return for a package of birthday gifts she sent us a poem,
from which I take these verses:--
"The Hawthorne is a gracious tree
From latest twig to parent root,
For when all others leafless stand
It gayly blossoms and bears fruit.
On certain days a friendly wind
Wafts from its spreading boughs a store
Of canny gifts that flutter in
Like snowflakes at a neighbor's door.
"The spinster who has just been blessed
Finds solemn thirty much improved,
By proofs that such a crabbed soul
Is still remembered and beloved.
Kind wishes 'ancient Lu' has stored
In the 'best chamber' of her heart,
And every gift on Fancy's stage
Already plays its little part.
"Long may it stand, the friendly tree,
That blooms in autumn and in spring,
Beneath whose shade the humblest bird
May safely sit, may gratefully sing.
Time will give it an evergreen name,
Axe cannot harm it, frost cannot kill;
With Emerson's pine and Thoreau's oak
Will the Hawthorne be loved and honored still!"
My mother's records, moreover, in letters to her husband, refer to the
humble labors that almost filled up her devoted year (her daughters
tried to imitate her example), and these references indicate the
difference we felt between Europe and home:--
Rose raised all the echoes of the county by screaming with joy over
her blooming crocuses, which she found in her garden. The spring
intoxicates her with "remembering wine." She hugs and kisses me almost
to a mummy, with her raptures.
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