The Christmas Tree

In the dark and damp of the alley cold, Lady Christmas tree that hadn't been sold by a shopman dourily thrown outside with the rock and rubble of Christmas tide, trodden deep in the muck and mire unworthy even to feed a fire.

So I stopped and salvaged that tarnished tree, and thus is the story it told to me. My mother was queen of the forest glade, and proudly I prospered in her shade. For she said to me, When I am dead you will be monarch in my stead, and reign as I, for a hundred years, a tower of triumph amid your peers.

When I crash and storm, I will yield you space. Son, you will worthy take my place. So I grew in grace like a happy child, in the heart of the forest, free and wild, and the moss and the ferns were all about, and the craint of my script in and out.

And a wood doth swung on my highest twig, and a chipmunk chattered. So big, so big, and a shy fawn nibbled a tender shoot, and a rabbit nibbled under my root. Oh, I was happy in rain and shine as I thought of the destiny that was mine.

Then a man with an axe came cruising by, and I knew that my fate was to fall and die, With a hundred others he packed me tight, and we drove to a magic city of light, to an avenue lined with Christmas trees.

And I thought, maybe I'll be one of these, tensilled with silver and tricked with gold, a lovely sight for a child to behold, a glitter with lights of every hue, ruby and emerald, orange and blue, and kiddies dancing with shrieks of glee. One might feel worse than a Christmas tree, so they stood me up with a hundred more. In the blaze of a big department