From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 60-61.
ARBOR DAY
Soon as he landed from the seas
And limbered up his pious knees,
The Pilgrim fell to chopping trees;
And when he died he left his son
An ax, a Bible and a gun.
The forest furnished beam and rafter
To him and all his children after.
They swung the ax with mighty strokes
And hacked down hickories, pines and oaks.
They needed wood for house and barn,
For spinning wheels to twist their yarn.
They needed wood and trees were plenty,
Where ten would do they cut down twenty.
Yet those old boys we should not scorn,
They wanted land to plant their corn.
They needs must break the forest screens
To raise a crop of Boston beans.
Though in the boughs the birds sang sweet,
The wooded land could grow no wheat.
Alas, their sons have formed the habit,
And when they see a tree they grab it,
Then haul it off to saw and slab it.
So in our day the trees are few
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On many hills where once they grew.
The dryads all have left their places —
At least we seldom see their faces.
O if you have some steep hillside
Where weeds and ferns are spreading wide,
And pasture grass has mostly died,
I pray you give it back to wood
And set in trees o’er many a rood.
You may not live to chop the same,
But future folks will bless your name,
And fledgling birds in many a nest
By your wise kindness will be blest.
We also ought, in clays and loams,
To set out maples ’round our homes.
A tree, it is a pleasant thing
In winter, summer, fall or spring,
And we should learn and often quote,
The verse on trees that Kilmer wrote,
Before he left his poet wife
And gave in war his good young life.
In heaven I hope he sings and sees
More tuneful songs and lovelier trees.