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It was a marvellous spectacle, and one full of happiness and joy! And yet amid all this happiness the tree felt a longing, a yearning desire that all other trees of the wood beneath him, and all the bushes, and herbs, and flowers, might be able to rise with him, that they too might see this splendour, and experience this joy. The great majestic oak was not quite happy in his happiness, while he had not them all, great and little, about him; and this feeling of yearning trembled through his every twig, through his every leaf, warmly and fervently as through a human heart.

The crown of the tree waved to and fro, as if he sought something in his silent longing, and he looked down. Then he felt the fragrance of thyme, and soon afterwards the more powerful scent of honeysuckle and violets; and he fancied he heard the cuckoo answering him.

Yes, through the clouds the green summits of the forest came peering up, and under himself the Oak saw the other trees, as they grew and raised themselves aloft. Bushes and herbs shot up high, and some tore themselves up bodily by the roots to rise the quicker. The birch was the quickest of all. Like a white streak of lightning, its slender stem shot upwards in a zigzag line, and the branches spread around it like green gauze and like banners; the whole woodland natives, even to the brown plumed rushes, grew up with the rest, and the birds came too, and sang; and on the grass blade that fluttered aloft like a long silken ribbon into the air, sat the grasshopper cleaning his wings with his leg; the May beetles hummed, and the bees murmured, and every bird sang in his appointed manner; all was song and sound of gladness up into the high heaven.

“But the little blue flower by the water-side, where is that?” said the Oak; “and the purple bell-flower and the daisy?” for, you see, the old Oak Tree wanted to have them all about him.

“We are here–we are here!” was shouted and sung in reply.

“But the beautiful thyme of last summer–and in the last year there was certainly a place here covered with lilies of the valley! and the wild apple tree that blossomed so splendidly! and all the glory of the wood that came year by year–if that had only just been born, it might have been here now!”

“We are here, we are here!” replied voices still higher in the air. It seemed as if they had flown on before.

“Why, that is beautiful, indescribably beautiful!” exclaimed the old Oak Tree, rejoicingly. “I have them all around me, great and small; not one has been forgotten! How can so much happiness be imagined? How can it be possible?”

“In heaven, in the better land, it can be imagined, and it is possible!” the reply sounded through the air.

And the old tree, who grew on and on, felt how his roots were tearing themselves free from the ground.

“That’s right, that’s better than all!” said the tree. “Now no fetters hold me! I can fly up now, to the very highest, in glory and in light! And all my beloved ones are with me, great and small–all of them, all!”

That was the dream of the old Oak Tree; and while he dreamt thus a mighty storm came rushing over land and sea–at the holy Christmas tide. The sea rolled great billows towards the shore; there was a cracking and crashing in the tree–his root was torn out of the ground in the very moment while he was dreaming that his root freed itself from the earth. He fell. His three hundred and sixty-five years were now as the single day of the Ephemera.

On the morning of the Christmas festival, when the sun rose, the storm had subsided. From all the churches sounded the festive bells, and from every hearth, even from the smallest hut, arose the smoke in blue clouds, like the smoke from the altars of the druids of old at the feast of thanks offerings. The sea became gradually calm, and on board a great ship in the offing, that had fought successfully with the tempest, all the flags were displayed, as a token of joy suitable to the festive day.

“The tree is down–the old Oak Tree, our landmark on the coast!” said the sailors. “It fell in the storm of last night. Who can replace it? No one can.”

This was the funeral oration, short but well meant, that was given to the tree, which lay stretched on the snowy covering on the sea shore; and over its prostrate form sounded the notes of a song from the ship, a carol of the joys of Christmas, and of the redemption of the soul of man by His blood, and of eternal life.

“Sing, sing aloud, this blessed morn–
It is fulfilled–and He is born,
Oh, joy without compare!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

Thus sounded the old psalm tune, and every one on board the ship felt lifted up in his own way, through the song and the prayer, just as the old tree had felt lifted up in its last, its most beauteous dream in the Christmas night.