Does anyone know the words to The Magnolia Tree?

This poem was a story about how he gives her the tree on their wedding, and the tree grows, and sees their children and grandchildren..and I think he dies in the end. It was so beautiful and so remarkable..The last line is 'The old Magnolia Tree..."


I tried a search a few months ago and found another, but not his one...someone else was also searching it..they said it was from the 60's or 50's and was first published in some Woman's Magazine...


I would LOVE the words of this poem..

Does anyone know the words to The Magnolia Tree?
If I'm thinking of the same poem, it is "The White Magnolia Tree" by Helen Deutsch. You can find it online at the link below. You can also hear a recitation by Helen Hayes, in whose book "A Gift of Joy" it appeared, on the second website below. Hayes' book is out of print, but you may be able to find a used copy. I'm unclear as to the relationship of Hayes to Deutsch.





THE WHITE MAGNOLIA TREE


By Helen Deutsch





The year when I was twenty-one


(John that year was twenty-three)


That was the year, that was the spring,


We planted the white magnolia tree.





"This tree," said John, "shall grow with us, And every year it will bloom anew.


This is our life. This is our love."


And the white magnolia grew and grew....





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...





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 and


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, and it must be all or nothing, for aren't we the masters of creation?





Oh, valiant and untamed were we,


When we planted the white magnolia tree!





And the white magnolia grew and grew,


Holding our love within its core,


And every year it bloomed anew,


And we were twenty-one no more.





No more untamed, no more so free,


Nor so young, nor so wild and


aflame were we.





Dearer to us then grew other things:


easy sleep, books, a day's quiet holiday, good talk beside a fire, the beauty of old faces....





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 (that it can and must be done) 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, 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....








Dear Heaven, I give thanks to thee


For the thinks I did not know before.


For the wisdom of maturity,


For bread, and a roof, and for


one thing more....





Thanks because I still can see


The bloom on the white magnolia tree!

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