THE WHITE MAGNOLIA TREE

Solo 1: The year when I was twenty-one

(John that year was twenty-tree)

That was the year, that was the spring,

We planted the white magnolia tree.

Solo 2: “The tree,”

All: said John,

Solo 2: “shall grow with us,

And every year it will bloom anew.

This is our life. This is our love.”

Solo 1: And the white magnolia grew and grew.

All: Oh, Youth’s a thing of fire and ice

And currents that run

Hot and white

And its world is as bright

As the sun….

Solo 1: I was twenty-one…..

And I wore a plume in my hat

And we went to the movies and wept

Over Stella Dallas, and John sang

“Moonlight and Roses” (a little off key

but very nicely, really)

And we hurried through our crowded days with

beautiful plans, boundless ambitions,

and golden decisions.

There is so much the young heart clamors for;

This it must have and that it cannot live without,

All: And it must be all or nothing, for aren’t we

The masters of Creation?

Solo 1: Oh, valiant and untamed were we,

When we planted the white magnolia tree.

All: And the white magnolia grew and grew

Holding their love within its core,

And every year it bloomed anew

Solo 1: And we were twenty-one no more.

No more untamed, no more so free,

Nor so young, nor so wild and aflame were we.

Solo 1: Dearer to us then grew other things:

All: easy sleep, books, a day’s quiet

holiday, good talk beside a fire,

The beauty of old faces…..

Solo 1: We have known many things since then:

The death of a child and the bitter lesson

That a heart which breaks must mend itself again

All: (that it can and must be done)

Solo 1: And what loyalty can mean, and how real a word like

courage can become, and that solitude can be rich

and gratifying and quite different from loneliness

There is so little the serious heart requires;

All: Friends, faith, a window open to the world,

Pride in work well done, and strength to live in a

world at war, and still maintain the heart’s

own private peace….

Solo 1: Dear heaven, I give thanks to thee

For the things I did not know before,

All: For the wisdom of maturity, for bread, and a roof

and for one thing more…..

Solo 1: Thanks because I still can see

The bloom on the white magnolia tree!