Publication information
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Source: Poems of American History
Source type: book
Document type: poem
Document title: “The Comfort of the Trees”
Author(s): Gilder, Richard Watson
Editor(s): Stevenson, Burton Egbert
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Place of publication: Boston, Massachusetts
Year of publication: 1908
Pagination: 650

 
Citation
Gilder, Richard Watson. “The Comfort of the Trees.” Poems of American History. Ed. Burton Egbert Stevenson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908: p. 650.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
William McKinley (poetry); William McKinley (death: poetry).
 
Named persons
none.
 
Notes
From title page: Collected and Edited by Burton Egbert Stevenson.
 
Document

 

The Comfort of the Trees

GENTLE and generous, brave-hearted, kind,
     And full of love and trust was he, our chief;
     He never harmed a soul! Oh, dull and blind
     And cruel, the hand that smote, beyond belief!
Strike him? It could not be! Soon should we find
     ’T was but a torturing dream—our sudden grief!
     Then sobs and wailings down the northern wind
     Like the wild voice of shipwreck from a reef!
By false hope lulled (his courage gave us hope!)
     By day, by night we watched,—until unfurled
     At last the word of fate!—Our memories
Cherish one tender thought in their sad scope:
     He, looking from the window on this world,
     Found comfort in the moving green of trees.

 

 


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