Classic Poem

Johnny Appleseed

FROM JOHNNY APPLESEED

1.

" Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed, "
Chief of the fastnesses, dappled and vast,
In a pack on his back,
In a deer-hide sack,
The beautiful orchards of the past,
The ghosts of all the forests and the groves —
In that pack on his back,
In that talisman sack,
Tomorrow's peaches, pears and cherries,
Tomorrow's grapes and red raspberries,
Seeds and tree-souls, precious things.

2.

Hawthorn and crab-thorn bent, rain-wet,
And dropped their flowers in his night-black hair;
And the soft fawns stopped for his perorations;
And his black eyes shone through the forest-gleam,
And he plunged young hands into the new-turned earth,
And prayed dear orchard boughs into birth;
And he ran with the rabbit and slept with the stream,
And he ran with the rabbit and slept with the stream,
And he ran with the rabbit and slept with the stream,
And so for us he made great medicine,
And so for us he made great medicine,
And so for us he made great medicine,
In the days of President Washington.English