Advice: A Book of Poems

<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">ADVICE TO MAPLE-TREES</h2> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">O little maple-trees,</div> <div class="verse">Slender and unkempt, looking with shaggy askance</div> <div class="verse">Upon the moon-spiked solitude;</div> <div class="verse">O little maple-trees,</div> <div class="verse">Growing a little toward the sky</div> <div class="verse">That touches you to all eyes save your own,</div> <div class="verse">You rattle insistently for wings,</div> <div class="verse">But wings could never tear</div> <div class="verse">The stain of earth from your feet:</div> <div class="verse">The earth that gnaws at you until</div> <div class="verse">Your wing-cries strike the autumn night.</div> <div class="verse">You see, with me, this crescent moon</div> <div class="verse">Juggled on the tawny fingertip</div> <div class="verse">Of a running cloud.</div> <div class="verse">The touch of your desire, or its fall,</div> <div class="verse">Would but be symbols of an equal death.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />