Poem of the Week
January 12, 2004
In 1884, Alice Polk Hill's feisty "Tales of the Colorado Pioneers" proved a local best seller. Decades later, an elderly Mrs. Hill and a young future laureate Thomas Hornsby Ferril both had poetry selected for the Anthology of Newspaper Verse for 1921. "The Message of the Tree" by Alice Polk Hill first appeared in the Denver Times.
Mrs. Hill died August 30, 1921.
When this old world was young, then grew a tree,
Beneath it flowers bloomed in dust and sand,
The birds aswing upon its limbs sang free,
And dreary earth became enchanted land.
Then suddenly before the steps of man
Appeared its limbs flung out against the blue ;
He with its leafy boughs a home began---
From this first home the earth to Eden grew.
The silent tree that listens by the road ;
If it had lyric lips what songs 'twould sing,
Of good and bad bound in the human load ;
Wrecked homes---false friends---the sore from
gossip's sting,
The cruel word that leaves a lasting smart,
The broken vow that scalds the cheek with tears,
The happy laugh that springs from happy heart---
The silent tree keeps secret thru the years !
The forest stands like tall cathedral spires ;
One feels a something sacred and sublime ;
A something great that charms and never tires,
Which reaches far---back to the dawn of time,
And points beyond to ages yet to be.
The heavy laden kneeling on the sod,
Inspired and urged on by the mighty tree,
Breathes there a prayer and feels the peace of God.
Within the love-locked branches of the wood,
Deep rooted in warm earth ; limbs pointing high---
Christ's message sings to man of brotherhood ;
It falls gently like music from the sky.
Oh, men of Colorado save the tree !
And build in our own state its glory strong,
Here let it sing the message sweet and free,
'Tis sweeter far than any poet's song.
--Alice Polk Hill
Reprinted from the Anthology of Newspaper Verse for 1921.