Ohio History Journal

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Charles Burleigh Galbreath 135

Charles Burleigh Galbreath              135

The final phase.

But why delay the bitter truth--

The story of my pride and fall--

The transit from my vernal youth

To wreckage sad and skeletal,

Spurned by the feet of passers-by,

An outcast in the mire and rain,

Unworthy of a passing sigh

And dead alike to joy or pain?

Fair maiden, speed--I ask no more--

My flight aloft on fiery wings

To Nature's mighty reservoir--

The goal of all material things,

Your hope serene I may not claim

Of joys supernal yet to be,

Mine be the pride, refined by flame,

That I was once a Christmas Tree.

* NOTE: Suggested by a young woman in the act of throwing the rem-

nant of a Christmas tree on a burning rubbish heap. The tree asks per-

mission to tell its story before it is consigned to the flames.

 

OHIO

Ohio, bounteous state,

Home of the fair and great,

We hail thy name!

Star of the Middle West,

Gem in the Nation's crest,

Land that we love the best,

We sing thy fame!

Land of the clement skies,

Of rosy morning dyes

And sunset bars,

Of streams and woodland bowers,

Of fruit and grain and flowers,

Of quiet evening hours

And rising stars!

The fire of genius runs

In thy inventive sons,

And they have furled