| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | The Maple | | By James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) |
| | | THE MAPLE puts her corals on in May, | |
| While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling, | |
| To be in tune with what the robins sing, | |
| Plastering new log-huts ’mid her branches gray; | |
| But when the Autumn southward turns away, | 5 |
| Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring, | |
| And every leaf, intensely blossoming, | |
| Makes the year’s sunset pale the set of day. | |
| O youth unprescient, were it only so | |
| With trees you plant, and in whose shade reclined, | 10 |
| Thinking their drifting blooms Fate’s coldest snow! | |
| You carve dear names upon the faithful rind, | |
| Nor in that vernal stem the cross foreknow | |
| That Age shall bear, silent, yet unresigned! | | | | |
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