Taken wing! swing! "There my Mary blessed me with her hand When our souls, drank in the nuptial blessing, Ere she hastened to the spirit-land- There's the gate on which I used to There my Mary blessed me with her "I am fleeing-all I loved have fled. Yon green meadow was our place for playing; hand, See (and scorn all duller Taste) how Heaven loves color; How great Nature, clearly, joys in red and green; What sweet thoughts she thinks Of violets and pinks, Trees themselves are ours: Peach and roughest nut were blos soms in the spring; The lusty bee knows well The news, and comes pell-mell, And a thousand flushing hues made And dances in the gloomy thicks with darksome antheming; Beneath the very burden We wash our smiling cheeks in peace a thought for meek devotion, Who shall say that flowers Dress not heaven's own bowers ? Who its love, without us, can fancy— or sweet floor? Who shall even dare To say we sprang not there And came not down, that Love might bring one piece of heaven the more? Oh! pray believe that angels From those blue dominions Brought us in their white laps down 'twixt their golden pinions. THE GRASSHOPPER AND GREEN little vaulter in the sunny grass, Catching your heart up at the feel of June, Sole voice that's heard amid the lazy noon, When even the bees lag at the summoning brass; And you, warm little housekeeper, who class With those who think the candles come too soon, Loving the fire, and with your trick some tune Nick the glad silent moments as they pass! O sweet and tiny cousins that belong, And all those Amazonian plains lone | One to the fields, the other to the By the bee-birds haunted, lying as enchanted. hearth, But come rather, thou, good weather, Our used, and oh, be sure, not to be And find us in the fields together. ill-used brothers! O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing And shining so round and low; You were bright! ah, bright! but your light is failing,- You moon, have you done something wrong in heaven I hope if you have, you will soon be forgiven, O velvet bee, you're a dusty fellow, O columbine, open your folded wrapper, And show me your nest with the young ones in it; I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet, I am seven times one to-day. You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges Yet birds' clearest carol by fall or by swelling No magical sense conveys, And bells have forgotten their old art of telling "Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheerily, Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over, No listening, no longing shall aught, aught discover The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather: I wish and I wish that the spring would go faster, And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster, I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover, "The child is a woman, the book may close over, |