SONG:

To M. L.

A LILY thou wast when I saw thee first,

A lily-bud not opened quite,

That hourly grew more pure and white,
By morning, and noontide, and evening nursed :
In all of nature thou hadst thy share;

Thou wast waited on

By the wind and sun;

The rain and the dew for thee took care;

It seemed thou never couldst be more fair.

A lily thou wast when I saw thee first,
A lily-bud; but, O, how strange,

How full of wonder was the change,

When, ripe with all sweetness, thy full bloom burst!

How did the tears to my glad eyes start,

When the woman-flower

Reached its blossoming hour,

And I saw the warm deeps of thy golden heart!

Glad death may pluck thee, but never before
The gold dust of thy bloom divine

Hath dropped from thy heart into mine,

To quicken its faint germs of heavenly lore;
For no breeze comes nigh thee but carries away
Some impulses bright

Of fragrance and light,

Which fall upon souls that are lone and astray,

To plant fruitful hopes of the flower of day.

TO THE DANDELION.

DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside the

Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,

First pledge of blithesome May,

Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,

Which not the rich earth's ample round

way,

May match in wealth, — thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,

Nor wrinkled the lean brow

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;

'T is the spring's largess, which she scatters now

To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,

Though most hearts never understand

To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest me

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment In the white lily's breezy tent,

His conquered Sybaris, than I, when first. From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,

Or whiten in the wind, — of waters blue

That from the distance sparkle through

Some woodland gap,—and of a sky above,
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,

Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,

And I, secure in childish piety,

Listened as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he did bring

Fresh every day to my untainted ears,

When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!

Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look

On all these living pages of God's book.