{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/the-friendly-trees",
 "title": "The Friendly Trees",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished",
 "book_slug": "poems-now-first-collected",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1911 first collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from and the first to give the poem a title, not necessarily the poem's first appearance: the volume's own title page describes it as now first collected and revised, and eleven of these twelve poems had already been printed untitled in Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land (1908).",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 33,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 59,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I will sing of the bounty of the big trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are the green tents of the Almighty,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hath set them up for comfort and for shelter.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Their cords hath he knotted in the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hath driven their stakes securely,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their roots take hold of the rocks like iron.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He sendeth into their bodies the sap of life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They lift themselves lightly toward the heavens.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They rejoice in the broadening of their branches.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Their leaves drink in the sunlight and the air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They talk softly together when the breeze bloweth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their shadow in the noon-day is full of coolness.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The tall palm-trees of the plain are rich in fruit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the fruit ripeneth the flower unfoldeth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The beauty of their crown is renewed on high forever.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The cedars of Lebanon are fed by the snow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Afar on the mountain they grow like giants,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In their layers of shade a thousand years are dreaming.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How fair are the trees that befriend the home of man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The oak, and the terebinth, and the sycamore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The broad-leaved fig-tree and the delicate silvery olive.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In them the Lord is loving to his little birds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The linnets and the finches and the nightingales,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They people his pavilions with nests and with music.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The cattle also are very glad of a great tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They chew the cud beneath it while the sun is burning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there the panting sheep lie down around their shepherd.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He that planteth a tree is a servant of God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He provideth a kindness for many generations,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lord, when my spirit shall return to thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the foot of a friendly tree let my body be buried,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That this dust may rise and rejoice among the branches.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}