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