Trailing Arbutus.

DARLINGS of the forest!

Blossoming, alone,

When Earth's grief is sorest

For her jewels gone

TRAILING ARBUTUS.

The purple petals fallen in the pool

Made the black waters with their beauty gayHere might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array. Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the marsh and sky,

Ere the last snow-drift melts, your tender buds Dear, tell them, that if eyes were made for seeing,

have blown.

Tinged with color faintly,

Like the morning sky,

Or, more pale and saintly,

Wrapped in leaves ye lie

Even as children sleep in faith's simplicity.

There the wild wood-robin,

Hymns your solitude;

And the rain comes sobbing

Through the budding wood,

Then beauty is its own excuse for being.

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!

I never thought to ask; I never knew,
But in my simple ignorance suppose

31

The selfsame Power that brought me there, brought you.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Nature.

THE bubbling brook doth leap when I come by,

While the low south wind sighs, but dare not be Because my feet find measure with its call; more rude.

Were your pure lips fashioned

Out of air and dew,

Starlight unimpassioned,

Dawn's most tender hue,

The birds know when the friend they love is nigh,
For I am known to them, both great and small.
The flower that on the lonely hill-side grows
Expects me there when Spring its bloom has given;
And many a tree and bush my wanderings knows,
And e'en the clouds and silent stars of heaven;

And scented by the woods that gathered sweets for For he who with his Maker walks aright,
you?

Fairest and most lonely,

From the world apart;

Made for beauty only,

Veiled from Nature's heart

With such unconscious grace as makes the dream

of Art!

Were not mortal sorrow

An immortal shade,

Then would I to-morrow

Such a flower be made,

Shall be their lord as Adam was before;
His ear shall catch each sound with new delight,
Each object wear the dress that then it wore;
And he, as when erect in soul he stood,
Hear from his Father's lips that all is good.

Song of Spring.

LAUD the first Spring daisies;
Chant aloud their praises;

And live in the dear woods where my lost child- Send the children up

hood played.

ROSE TERRY COOKE.

The Rhodora.

LINES ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook:

To the high hill's top;

JONES VERY.

Tax not the strength of their young hands

To increase your lands.

Gather the primroses,

Make handfuls into posies;

Take them to the little girls who are at work in mills:
Pluck the violets blue,-

Ah, pluck not a few!

Knowest thou what good thoughts from Heaven

the violet instils?

Give the children holidays,

(And let these be jolly days),

Spring;

Dwell, but with each other keep society:
And with a simple piety

Grant freedom to the children in this joyous Are ready to be woven into garlands for the good.

Better men, hereafter,

Shall we have, for laughter

Or, upon Summer earth,

To die, in virgin worth;

Or to be strewn before the bride,

Freely shouted to the woods, till all the echoes And the bridegroom, by her side.

ring.

Send the children up

To the high hill's top,

Or deep into the wood's recesses,

To woo Spring's caresses.

See, the birds together,

In this splendid weather,

Worship the God of Nature in your childhood;
Worship Him at your tasks with best endeavor;
Worship Him in your sports; worship him ever;

Worship God (for he is God of birds as well as Worship Him in the wildwood;

men):

And each feathered neighbor

Enters on his labor,

Worship Him amidst the flowers;

In the greenwood bowers;

Pluck the buttercups, and raise

Sparrow, robin, redpoll, finch, the linnet, and the Your voices in His praise!

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with O vanished Joy! O Love, that art no more,