Classic Poem

Give me no crowded city,
When my heart is lone and sad,
With its countless thronging thousands—
The tumult would drive me mad.

In the throbbing life of the city,
Who cares for another's moan?—
Tho' around me the crowd were surging,
I should stand by myself, alone.

Give me no heaving ocean,
Give me no wind-swept plain;
For there—is but time for brooding,
Nothing to heal the pain.

But give me the wide-spread forest,
With its hemlock, and beech, and pine,
With its ash, and its oak, and its maple,
And its ferns, and its mosses fine,

With its rocky glens and streamlets,
And the music of water-falls,
With its birds, and beasts, and flowers,
And its dreamy wild-wood calls.

Tho' I wander, alone, through the forest,
There are friends upon every hand:
Tried friends, who comfort and soothe me,
As they whisper “We understand.”