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
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

III.

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

IV.

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.

V.

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.

VI.

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.

SHE CAME AND WENT.

As a twig trembles, which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;—
I only know she came and went.

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
The orchards full of bloom and scent,
So clove her May my wintry sleeps ;-
I only know she came and went.

An angel stood and met my gaze,
Through the low doorway of my tent;
The tent is struck, the vision stays;-
I only know she came and went.

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim,
And life's last oil is nearly spent,
One gush of light these eyes will brim,
Only to think she came and went.

THE CHANGELING.

I had a little daughter,
And she was given to me
To lead me gently backward

To the Heavenly Father's knee,
That I, by force of nature,

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,
But to me she was wholly fair,

And the light of the heaven she came from
Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;
For it was as wavy and golden,
And as many changes took,
As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples
On the yellow bed of a brook.

To what can I liken her smiling
Upon me, her kneeling lover,

How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,
And dimpled her wholly over,