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THE PLANTING.
“I said to my little son, who was watching tearfully at a tree he had
planted,—‘Let it alone; it will grow while you are sleeping,’”
- PLANT it safe and sure, my child,
- Then cease watching and cease weeping;
- You have done your utmost part:
- Leave it with a quiet heart:
- It will grow while you are sleeping.
- “But, O father,” says the child,
- With a troubled face up‐creeping,
- “How can I but think and grieve
- When the fierce wind comes at eve
- Tearing it—and I lie sleeping!
- “I have loved my young tree so!
- In each bud seen leaf and floweret,
- Watered it each day with prayers,
- Guarded it with many cares,
- Lest some canker should devour it.
- “O good father,” sobs the child,
- “If I come in summer’s shining
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- And my pretty tree be dead,
- How the sun will scorch my head,
- How I shall sit lorn, repining!
- “Rather let me, evermore,
- An incessant watch thus keeping,
- Bear the cold, the storm, the frost,
- That my treasure be not lost—
- Ay, bear aught—but idle sleeping.”
- Sternly said the father then,
- “Who art thou, child, vainly grieving?
- Canst thou send the balmy dews,
- Or the rich sap interfuse
- Through the dead trunk, inly living?
- “Canst thou bid the heavens restrain
- Natural tempests for thy praying?
- Canst thou bend one tender shoot,
- Urge the growth of one frail root,
- Keep one leaflet from decaying?
- “If it live to bloom all fair,
- Will it praise thee for its blossom?
- If it die, will any plaints
- Reach thee, as with kings and saints
- Drops it to the cold earth’s bosom?
- “Plant it—all thou canst!—with prayers;
- It is safe ’neath His sky’s folding
- Who the whole earth compasses,
- Whether we watch more or less,
- His wide eye all things beholding.
- “Should He need a goodly tree
- For the shelter of the nations,
- He will make it grow: if not,
- Never yet His love forgot
- Human love, and faith, and patience.
- “Leave thy treasure in His hand—
- Cease all watching and all weeping:
- Years hence, men its shade may crave,
- And its mighty branches wave
- Beautiful above they sleeping.”
- If his hope, tear‐sown, that child
- Garnered after joyful reaping,
- Know I not: yet unawares
- Gleams this truth through many cares,
- “It will grow while thou art sleeping.”
