Under its branches the children play; among its boughs the birds sing.

One day the woodman comes with his axe, and the tree quivers in all its branches, under his sturdy blows.

"I am being destroyed," it cries.

So it seems, as the great tree crashes down to the ground.

And the children are sad because they can play no more beneath the broad branches; the birds grieve because they can no more nest and sing amid the summer foliage.
But let us follow the tree's history.