’Neath which slim fairies tripping wrought those rings
Of greenest emerald, wherewith fireside life
Did with the invisible spirit of Nature wed,
Was ever planted here!  No darnel fancy
Might choke one useful blade in Puritan fields;
With horn and hoof the good old Devil came, 130
The witch’s broomstick was not contraband,
But all that superstition had of fair,
Or piety of native sweet, was doomed. 
And if there be who nurse unholy faiths,
Fearing their god as if he were a wolf
That snuffed round every home and was not seen,
There should be some to watch and keep alive
All beautiful beliefs.  And such was that,—­
By solitary shepherd first surmised
Under Thessalian oaks, loved by some maid 140
Of royal stirp, that silent came and vanished,
As near her nest the hermit thrush, nor dared
Confess a mortal name,—­that faith which gave
A Hamadryed to each tree; and I
Will hold it true that in this willow dwells
The open-handed spirit, frank and blithe,
Of ancient Hospitality, long since,
With ceremonious thrift, bowed out of doors.

In June ’tis good to lie beneath a tree
While the blithe season comforts every sense, 150
Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart,
Brimming it o’er with sweetness unawares,
Fragrant and silent as that rosy snow
Wherewith the pitying apple-tree fills up
And tenderly lines some last-year robin’s nest. 
There muse I of old times, old hopes, old friends,—­
Old friends!  The writing of those words has borne
My fancy backward to the gracious past,
The generous past, when all was possible. 
For all was then untried; the years between 160
Have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, none
Wiser than this,—­to spend in all things else,
But of old friends to be most miserly. 
Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring,
As to an oak, and precious more and more,
Without deservingness or help of ours,
They grow, and, silent, wider spread, each year,
Their unbought ring of shelter or of shade,
Sacred to me the lichens on the bark,
Which Nature’s milliners would scrape away; 170
Most dear and sacred every withered limb! 
’Tis good to set them early, for our faith
Pines as we age, and, after wrinkles come,
Few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears.

This willow is as old to me as life;
And under it full often have I stretched,
Feeling the warm earth like a thing alive,
And gathering virtue in at every pore
Till it possessed me wholly, and thought ceased,
Or was transfused in something to which thought 180
Is coarse and dull of sense.  Myself was lost. 
Gone from me like an ache, and what remained
Become a part of the universal joy. 
My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree,
Danced in the leaves; or, floating in the cloud,
Saw its white double in the stream below;