Tuesday, February 5, 2013

To Him Who Plants a Tree

From a Hodges' scrapbook, dated 1922.  Hodges wrote two notes on this page:  "one of the very best," and "This makes me think of my father who was always planting a tree--He died at 80 1/2 years--at peace with all the world."  His father was John J. Hodges (1842-1923).

TO HIM WHO PLANTS A TREE
Perhaps our God has somewhere made a thing
More beautiful to see
Than a majestic tree;
But if He has, I think it grows
In Heaven, by the stream that flows
Where whiter souls than ours do sing.

Who plants a tree, his is akin to God,
In this impatient age
Where quick returns engage
The fevered service of the crowd.
In reverent wisdom he is bowed
And hides his purpose in the clod.

The blessed man that plants a long-lived tree
That shall grow nobly on
When he is dead and gone,
He seems to me to love his kind
With true sincerity of mind,
He seems to love his fellows yet to be.

Above his grave the suns shall flush and fade,
The seasons come and go
And storms shall drive and blow;
But sun and rain that from his tomb
Efface his name, renew the bloom
And glory of the monument he made.
--Author Unknown
The Goodwood drive, lined by "long-lived trees" that "grow nobly on"

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