Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us, on the bough!

We'll talk of sunshine and of song;

And summer days when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.

Poised: balanced. Sǎnc'tú á ry: a place of refuge; a sacred place.

To the Dandelion

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): An American author. He was minister to Spain and afterward to Great Britain. His writing covers a large range, — literary and critical essays, public addresses, poetical satires, lyrics, and odes. He wrote "My Study Windows," "Among my Books," "The Vision of Sir Launfal," "A Fable for Critics," "The Biglow Papers," and other works in prose and poetry.

1. Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 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
May match in wealth-thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer blooms may be.

2. 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;

'Tis 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.

3. 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 summerlike, warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tent,

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

4. Then think I of deep shadows in 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, or 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.

5. 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 could bring Fresh every day to my untainted ears,

When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

6. Thou art the type of those meek charities

Which make up half the nobleness of life Those cheap delights the wise

Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife; Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes, Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may give The morsel that may keep alive

A starving heart, and teach it to behold.

Some glimpse of God where all before was cold.

7. Thy winged seeds, whereof the winds take care, Are like the words of poet and of sage

Which through the free Heaven fare,

And, now unheeded, in another age

Take root, and to the gladdened future bear That witness which the present would not heed,

Bringing forth many a thought and deed, And, planted safely in the eternal sky, Bloom into stars which earth is guided by.

8. Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full Than all thy common brethren of the ground, Wherein, were we not dull,

Some words of highest wisdom might be found; Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull

Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make
A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache,

And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us still,

Yea, nearer ever than the gates of Ill.

9. 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.

10. But let me read thy lesson right or no,

Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure; Old I shall never grow

While thou each year dost come to keep me pure
With legends of my childhood; ah, we owe

Well more than half life's holiness to these
Nature's first lowly influences,

At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst

ope,

In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope.

Búc cả nēers' pirates; sea robbers, especially those who attacked the Spanish in America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. El do rä'do: the golden country; a name given by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century to an imaginary country in the interior of South America, said to abound in gold and gems. Pri mē'val: original; belonging to the first ages. Lär'gess: bounty; gift. Cui rassed': wearing a cuirass, a piece of defensive armor covering the body from the neck to the girdle. Syb'ä ris: a Greek colony noted for the luxury of its inhabitants. Un tāint'ěd: pure; uncorrupted. Spell: a charm. Pōr'tals: gates.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths ;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life's but a means unto an end, that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things, God.

BAILEY