A Lilac bush and an Apple tree Were standing in the woods Out on the hill above the town, Where once a farmhouse stood. In the winter the leaves are bare And no one sees the signs Of a house that stood and a garden that grew And life in another time. One Spring when the buds came bursting forth And gra** grew on the land, The Lilac spoke to the Apple tree As only an old friend can. Do you think, said the Lilac, this might be the year When someone will build here once more? Here by the cellar, still open and deep, There's room for new walls and a floor. Oh, no, said the Apple, there are so few
Who come here on the mountain this way And when they do, they don't often see Why we're growing here, so far away. A long time ago we were planted by hands That worked in the mines and the mills When the country was young and the people who came Built their homes in the hills. But now there are cities, the roads have come And no one lives here today And the only signs of the farms in the hills Are the things not carried away Broken dishes, piles of boards, A tin plate, an old leather shoe. And an Apple tree still bending down And a Lilac where a garden once grew.