Poem by Edith Matilda Thomas

Talking in Their Sleep

“You think I am dead,”
   The apple tree said,
“Because I have never a leaf to show—
   Because I stoop,
   And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!
But I’m still alive in trunk and shoot;
   The buds of next May
   I fold away—
But I pity the withered grass at my root.”

   “You think I am dead,”
   The quick grass said,
“Because I have parted with stem and blade!
   But under the ground
   I am safe and sound
With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid.
I’m all alive, and ready to shoot,
   Should the spring of the year
   Come dancing here—
But I pity the flower without branch or root.”
   “You think I am dead,”
   A soft voice said,
“Because not a branch or root I own.
   I never have died,
   But close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.
Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
   You will see me again—
   I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.”

1. Her Christmas Present
2. Refreshments for Santa Claus
3. The Firebrand (Northern Ohio, Christmas Eve, 1804)
4. The Christmas Sheaf
5. “I Ought to Mustn't”

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