She was unable to understand the language of her brothers and sisters
and so stood alone and unheeded in the dense forest. One morning she
awakened and found standing by her side a companion tree, odd, like
herself, and she said in her heart:--"I shall be no longer alone. He
will understand my language and we shall hold sweet converse." But he,
in his heart, was saying--"What strange tree is this? We two are unlike
all our companions. I like it not." But she did not hear the murmur of
discontent, and her heart grew glad within her at the great joy that had
come to her and she said in her heart:--"I will cause him to forget that
we are unlike our companions; I will sing to him my softest songs and
gradually her dress of sombre green assumed a brighter hue, young buds
sprang forth, her branches waved softly in the breeze and she wooed the
birds by gentle voice to build their nests in her arms, and,
"In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day in vaster numbers,
Flocked the poets of the air."
At eventide she folded them in her bosom, that their songs might not
disturb the sleep of her companion, and while all the forest slept, she
alone was awake and, in the silence of the night, she murmured softly,
"Ich liebe Dich," and when the sun arose the birds from her arms flew
through the forest, singing, "Ich liebe Dich," and all the trees took up
the song; the birds, the trees and the brooks caught up the refrain and
all the great forest sang, "Ich liebe Dich, Ich liebe Dich.
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