Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: POEMS OF NATURE The tumult of the city shuts out the stars overhead, And ne'er a wayside blossom glows Along the paths men tread: But way down home, where the whip-poor-will Enchants the woods of June, With a lover's plaintive tune, The night is soft and sweet and still Under the silver moon. TALL PINES I played about them as a boy in glee, And somehow from the ground to highest spars They always looked like silent gods to me; Their lofty tops seemed playing with the stars. Each winter storm, with gritted teeth would bend His pitted wrath against their lofty height; Through all these years each would more deeply send His firm roots down in majesty of might. I've heard them sing. Their far-otf needled heights Were like the strings of some Aeolian lyre; Their notes were dirges, weird, melodious flights Of wild, sweet music, full of strange desire, Years pass. They ruddier stand, unmoved and still, Firm fixed, with roots deep set within the sod, And more than then, my wondering soul they fill With time's old faith in God.THE LIVE OAK I count my age by storms. My comrade there, the sea Is greater and wiser and older Than I—and bolder; He whips and flays me with winds Until my patience unbends, Until the peace I love so well is broken in me. Hard master is the main. Forever awake with desires Eager and watching for plunder, He casts the weak asunder; The pitiful home-going craft He leaves there abaft With naught but the low-sunken spar; the sea never tires. Wise and persistent the sea. Where the palmetto grows Close up to the eddying beaches His watery finger reaches; Then the sorrowful palmetto bows Like a sinner who vows, But the victim belongs to the main, as the dark surf kno...