All dream long a flower storm full#

It was just about holy Christmas time that the tree dreamed a dream. Crows and rooks came by turns and sat on them, and talked of the hard times which were beginning, and how difficult it was in winter to obtain food. But now it was winter, the tree stood leafless, so that every one could see how crooked and bent were the branches that sprang forth from the trunk. In its topmost branches the wood-pigeon built her nest, and the cuckoo carried out his usual vocal performances, and his well-known notes echoed amid the boughs and in autumn, when the leaves looked like beaten copper plates, the birds of passage would come and rest upon the branches before taking their flight across the sea. It had no idea how many eyes looked eagerly for it. Its summit towered above all the other trees, and could be seen far out at sea, so that it served as a landmark to the sailors. It was the largest and best tree in the forest. According to human computation, it was now in the fourth century of its existence. The great tree had once been small indeed, in its cradle it had been an acorn. Sweet sleep to you, and pleasant dreams.” And there stood the oak, stripped of all its leaves, left to rest during the whole of a long winter, and to dream many dreams of events that had happened in its life, as in the dreams of men. Sleep sweetly, the clouds will drop snow upon you, which will be quite a cover-lid, warm and sheltering to your feet. Correctly speaking, you are but a youngster in the world. Sleep sweetly, sleep sweetly, it is your three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth night. We will sing you to sleep, and shake you to sleep, and it will do your old twigs good they will even crackle with pleasure. Already the storms were singing, “Good-night, good-night.” Here fell a leaf and there fell a leaf. The oak remained awake through the morning of spring, the noon of summer, and the evening of autumn its time of rest, its night drew nigh-winter was coming. The same thing was continued through many generations of Ephemera all of them felt equally merry and equally happy. “Poor little Ephemera!” said the oak “what a terribly short life!” And so, on every summer day the dance was repeated, the same questions asked, and the same answers given. Its wings could sustain it no longer, and gently and slowly it glided down upon the soft waving blades of grass, nodded its little head as well as it could nod, and slept peacefully and sweetly.

All dream long a flower storm full#

The long and beautiful day had been so full of joy and sweet delights, that when the sun sank low it felt tired of all its happiness and enjoyment. “No,” replied the tree “it will certainly last much longer,- infinitely longer than I can even think of.” “Well, then,” said the little fly, “we have the same time to live only we reckon differently.” And the little creature danced and floated in the air, rejoicing in her delicate wings of gauze and velvet, rejoicing in the balmy breezes, laden with the fragrance of clover-fields and wild roses, elder-blossoms and honeysuckle, from the garden hedges, wild thyme, primroses, and mint, and the scent of all these was so strong that the perfume almost intoxicated the little fly. Does all the beauty of the world cease when you die?” You may have thousands of my days, but I have thousands of moments in which I can be merry and happy. “No I shall very likely live for thousands of your days, and my day is whole seasons long indeed it is so long that you could never reckon it out.” “Over!” repeated the fly “what is the meaning of all over? Are you all over too?” “But only for one day, and then it is all over.” “Everything around me is so wonderfully bright and warm, and beautiful, that it makes me joyous.” “Melancholy! what do you mean?” the little creature would always reply. On many a warm summer, the Ephemera, the flies that exist for only a day, had fluttered about the old oak, enjoyed life and felt happy and if, for a moment, one of the tiny creatures rested on one of his large fresh leaves, the tree would always say, “Poor little creature! your whole life consists only of a single day. Winter is its time for rest its night after the long day of spring, summer, and autumn.

It is different with the tree it is obliged to keep awake through three seasons of the year, and does not get any sleep till winter comes. It was just three hundred and sixty-five years old, but that long time was to the tree as the same number of days might be to us we wake by day and sleep by night, and then we have our dreams. IN the forest, high up on the steep shore, and not far from the open seacoast, stood a very old oak-tree.