Traveller, come! Enter under my leaves for a rest
where the Sun will not reach you. Come and I promise the best:
Even with sun at the highest, shooting down on the meadows
brilliant rays, diffuse them I shall to the softest of shadows.
Here, right under my crown, wafts gently and cooling a breeze;
here the starlings and larks all abound and argue with ease.
Here the hard-working bees extract from my sweet-smelling flower
honey that graces the finest of tables at family hour.
And, without effort, with whispers that come from my deep
I shall be singing all visitors sweetly to sleep.
Though in Hesperides Garden none of the apples I bear,
as the most giving of trees my Lord has planted me there.
-Jan Kachanowski, “The Linden”