Sounding Childhood

"Woodman, spare that tree"



"Woodman, spare that tree" is another Band of Mercy song found in Sarah Eddy's Songs of Happy Life.  Written by George Pope Morris, music by Johann Adam Hiller, the song pursues exactly what the title states: an appeal to a woodman not to "touch a single bough" (v. 1), "forbear thy stroke" (v. 2), and then goes on to praise the various attributes of "the old oak--"its shade," its shelter, its "tow'ring to the skies."  Then its connections to humans are extolled: "My mother kissed me here; My father press'd my hand" (v. 3).  Our choir sang it in two-part harmony.'

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