TO THE DANDELION. I. 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. II. Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Of Nor wrinkled the lean brow 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 III. Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first IV. Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, That from the distance sparkle through move. V. My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song. Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, With news from heaven, which he could bring VI. How like a prodigal doth nature seem, More sacredly of every human heart, And with a child's undoubting wisdom look SHE CAME AND WENT. As a twig trembles, which a bird As, clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, The blue dome's measureless content, So my soul held that moment's heaven;I only know she came and went. As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps An angel stood and met my gaze, Oh, when the room grows slowly dim, THE CHANGELING. I had a little daughter, To the Heavenly Father's knee, Might in some dim wise divine The depth of his infinite patience To this wayward soul of mine. I know not how others saw her, And the light of the heaven she came from To what can I liken her smiling How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids, |