The Transplanted Birch

I was taken from the woodland where I sported blithe and free,

Where I frolicked with my fellows just as happy as could be;

There were hickories, and chestnuts, there were oaks and sassafras,

There were beeches, willows, maples, all of them I loved. Alas!

Now I’m standing on a greensward rich and soft as velvet down,

And beside me rears a mansion, far the handsomest in town;

I am nursed and treated kindly by the gard’ner old and gray,

But I long – O, how I hunger for my woodland far away.

I must stand here stiff and stately for admiring crowds to see,

While my tall and proud companions will not deign to speak to me;

And the rumble of the traffic as it passes day by day,

Makes me hunger for the quiet of the woodland far away.

Nov. 20, ‘04