| |
| THE CITY had withdrawn into itself | |
| And left at last the country to the country; | |
| When between whirls of snow not come to lie | |
| And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove | |
| A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, | 5 |
| Yet did in country fashion in that there | |
| He sat and waited till he drew us out | |
| A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was. | |
| He proved to be the city come again | |
| To look for something it had left behind | 10 |
| And could not do without and keep its Christmas. | |
| He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; | |
| My woods—the young fir balsams like a place | |
| Where houses all are churches and have spires. | |
| I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees. | 15 |
| I doubt if I was tempted for a moment | |
| To sell them off their feet to go in cars | |
| And leave the slope behind the house all bare, | |
| Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon. | |
| I’d hate to have them know it if I was. | 20 |
| Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except | |
| As others hold theirs or refuse for them, | |
| Beyond the time of profitable growth, | |
| The trial by market everything must come to. | |
| I dallied so much with the thought of selling. | 25 |
| Then whether from mistaken courtesy | |
| And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether | |
| From hope of hearing good of what was mine, | |
| I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.” | |
| “I could soon tell how many they would cut, | 30 |
| You let me look them over.” | |
| |
| “You could look. | |
| But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.” | |
| Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close | |
| That lop each other of boughs, but not a few | 35 |
| Quite solitary and having equal boughs | |
| All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to, | |
| Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one, | |
| With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.” | |
| I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so. | 40 |
| We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over, | |
| And came down on the north. | |
| He said, “A thousand.” | |
| |
| “A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?” | |
| |
| He felt some need of softening that to me: | 45 |
| “A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.” | |
| |
| Then I was certain I had never meant | |
| To let him have them. Never show surprise! | |
| But thirty dollars seemed so small beside | |
| The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents | 50 |
| (For that was all they figured out apiece), | |
| Three cents so small beside the dollar friends | |
| I should be writing to within the hour | |
| Would pay in cities for good trees like those, | |
| Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools | 55 |
| Could hang enough on to pick off enough. | |
| A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had! | |
| Worth three cents more to give away than sell, | |
| As may be shown by a simple calculation. | |
| Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter. | 60 |
| I can’t help wishing I could send you one, | |
| In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas. | |
| |
