zurück

Arboriculture      (Baumzucht)     1811

The adjunct comes to his friend with black lips, without knowing it, with blue teeth and strings hanging down his leggings. “The cherries,” he says, ”never taste better to me than when I myself can sit free and bold as a bird on the airy tree, and eat the most beautiful ones fresh from the branches, - I on one branch, a sparrow on another.”
“We all feed ourselves,” he says, ”at the same big father's table and from the same gentle hand the bee, the goby in the brook, the bird in the bush, the little horse and the reeve who rides on it.”
“Friend,” says the adjunct, ”sing me the song of the cherry tree in your own way. I will whistle to it on the leaf.”

The good Lord said to spring:
“Go, set the little worm's table too!”
Then the cherry tree bore leaves,
many thousands of leaves, green and fresh.

And the little worm wakes up from its egg,
it has been sleeping in its winter home,
It stretches and opens its little mouth,
and rubs out its stupid eyes.

And then, with silent teeth,
gnawed at the leaves one by one
and said: “How good the vegetables are!
You can hardly get away from them.”

And again the good Lord said:
“Now set the bee's table too.”
Then the cherry tree bore blossoms,
many thousands of blossoms, white and fresh.

And the little bee sees it and flies off,
early in the morning sunshine.
It thinks: “That will be my coffee,
they have precious china.

How clean the little cups are cleaned!”
It sticks its dry tongue in.
She drinks and says: “How sweet it tastes,
the sugar must be favorable.”

The good Lord said to summer:
“Go, set the sparrow's table too!”
Then the cherry tree bore fruit,
many thousands of cherries, red and fresh.

And the sparrow says: “Is that the report?
You sit there and don't ask for long.
It gives me strength in my marrow and bones,
and strengthens my voice to sing again.”

 “Housefriend,” says the adjunct, ”did the field guard sometimes chase you away from the cherry trees in your youth? And did you, however dark it was, still find your way to the plum trees in the parish garden to scoop up apples and nuts for the winter, like my mother-in-law's little squirrel, which she gave you as a present? After all, what you remember longest is what you encountered in your youth.” “That's natural,” says the house friend, ”you have the longest time to think about it.”

The good Lord said to the autumnl:
Clear away, now they've all had it!”
Then a cool mountain breeze blew,
and there was already a light hoarfrost.

And the leaves are turning yellow and red
and fall one after the other,
and what comes up from the ground
must also go down to the ground.

The good Lord has said to winter:
“Quickly cover up what's left.”
Then Winter scattered flakes on top -


“Friend,” says the adjunct, ”you're a little hoarse. If I had the choice of my own cherry tree or my own cherry tree or walnut tree, I'd rather have a tree.”
The house friend says: “Adjunct, you are a clever fellow. You think that if I had a tree of my own, I would also have a garden of my own, or a field where the tree stands. Having my own front door wouldn't be a bad thing either, but you could be in a bad way with your own coolie on its four legs.”
“That's just it,” says the adjunct, ”a tree like that doesn't eat clover or oat. No, it quietly drinks the nourishing sap of the earth like a mother's child, and sucks pure warm life from the sunshine, and fresh from the air, and shakes its hair in the storm. Even the cool one could die for me in time. But such a tree waits for children and children's children with its blossoms, with its birds' nests and with its blessings. The trees would be the happiest creatures, says the adjunct, if they knew how free and cheerful they live, how beautiful they are in spring and in their Christmas state in summer, and everything stops and looks at them and thanks God, or when the wanderer rests in their shade and enjoys a little pipe of tobacco or a piece of cheese, and how they can hand out favors like the emperor, and make young and old happy for nothing, and in winter do not go home alone.
No, they stay outside and guide the hiker when the roads and footpaths are covered in snow: Right - now left - now a little left over the little mountain.”
“Friend,” says the adjunct, ”if you ever become a bailiff, you are already a staff-holder, or even a district councillor, you would have the age, so you must diligently encourage your subordinates to cultivate trees and to be godly, and set them a good example yourself. You can leave no greater blessing to your community. For a tree, if it is planted or branched, costs nothing or little, but if it is large, it is a capital for the children and bears grateful interest. But godliness has the promise of this life and the life to come. “Once I have acquired so much from you,” says the adjunct to his friend, ”that I can buy my own little estate and marry my wife's mother-in-law's daughter, and the good Lord gives me offspring, then I will plant a little tree for each of my children, and the little tree must be called like the child, Ludwig, Johannes, Henriette, and is his first own capital and fortune, and I see how they grow and flourish together, and become more and more beautiful, and how after a few years the little boy himself climbs on his capital and collects the interest.
But if the good Lord takes one of my children from me, I ask the pastor or the dean to bury it under his little tree, and when spring returns and all the trees stand there like resurrected from the dead in their transfiguration, full of blossoms and summer birds and hope, I lie down by the grave and call down softly: 'Silent child, your little tree is blossoming. Meanwhile, sleep peacefully away! You will not miss your May day either.”
He is not an inconsiderate man, the adjunct.

The last verse of the poem - "Many thousands of flakes, white and fresh." - does not actually appear within the calendar story. The adjunct interrupts the friend's lecture and therefore does not get to recite it. But, of course, it is so obvious that the reader of the calendar will figure it out by himself.