By Edward Rowland Sill
WHEN I was yet but a child, the gardener gave me a tree, A little slim elm, to be set wherever seemed good to me What a wonderful thing it seemed! with its lace-edged leaves uncurled, And its span-long stem, that should grow to the grandest tree in the world! So I searched all the garden round, and out over field and hill, But not a spot could I find that suited my wayward will. I would have it bowered in the grove, in a close and quiet vale; I would rear it aloft on the height, to wrestle with the gale. Then I said, "I will cover its roots with a little earth by the door, And there it shall live and wait, while I search for a place once more." But still I could never find it, the place for my wondrous tree, And it waited and grew by the door, while years passed over me; Till suddenly, one fine day, I saw it was grown too tall, And its roots gone down too deep, to be ever moved at all. So here it is growing still, by the lowly cottage door; Never so grand and tall as I dreamed it would be of yore, But it shelters a tired old man in its sunshine-dappled shade, The children's pattering feet round its knotty knees have played, Dear singing birds in a storm sometimes take refuge there, And the stars through its silent boughs shine gloriously fair.