Latest / Ririro.com - Poetry / Christmas Trees

Transcript

Christmas Trees · Ririro.com - Poetry

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Christmas trees. The city had withdrawn into itself and left
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: at last the country to the country. When between whirls
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: of snow not come to lie, and whirls of foliage
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: not yet laid there drove a stranger to our yard,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: who looked the city, yet did in country fashion in
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: that There he sat and waited till he drew us
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: out a buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: He proved to be the city, come again to look
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: for something it had left behind and could not do without,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and keep its Christmas. He asked if I would sell
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: my Christmas trees, my woods, the young fir balsams like
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a place where houses all are churches and have spires.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of them as Christmas trees. I doubt
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: if I was tempted for a moment to sell them
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: off their feet, to go in cars and leave the
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: slope behind the house all bare, where the sun shines
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: now no warmer than the moon, I'd hate to have
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: them know it. If I was yet more, I'd hate
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to hold my trees, except as others hold theirs, or
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: refuse for them beyond the time of profitable growth. The
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: trial by market. Everything must come to I dallied so
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: much with the thought of selling. Then, whether from mistaken
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: courtesy and fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: from hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: there aren't enough to be worth while. I could soon
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: tell how many they would cut you. Let me look
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: them over. You could look, but don't expect I'm going
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to let you have them. Pasture. They spring in, some
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: in clumps too close that lop each other of boughs,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: but not a few, quite solitary, and having equal bows
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: all round and round the latter. He nodded yes too,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: or paused to say, beneath some lovelier one with a
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: buyer's moderation, that would do. I thought so too, but
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: wasn't there to say so. We climbed the pasture on
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the south, crossed over, and came down on the north.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: He said, a thousand, a thousand Christmas trees. At what
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a piece. He felt some need of softening that to me,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a thousand trees would come to thirty dollars. Then I
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: was certain I had never meant to let him have them,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: never show surprise. But thirty dollars seemed so small Beside
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the extent of pasture I should strip three cents, for
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: that was all they figured out a piece, three cents
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: so small beside the dollar friends I should be writing
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to within the hour would pay in cities for good trees,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: like those regular vestry trees whole Sunday schools could hang
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: enough on to pick off enough a thousand Christmas trees.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't know I had worth three cents more to
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: give away than sell, as may be shown by a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: simple calculation. Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I can't help wishing I could send you one in
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: wishing you herewith a merry Christmas