Iv

Crab-apple buds, whose bells The mouth of April kissed; That hang,--like rosy shells Around a Naiad’s wrist,-- Pink as dawn-tinted mist.

And paw-paw buds, whose dark Deep auburn blossoms shake On boughs,--as ’neath the bark A dryad’s eyes awake,-- Brown as a midnight lake.

These, with symbolic blooms Of wind-flower and wild-phlox, I found among the glooms Of hill-lost woods and rocks, Lairs of the hare and fox.

The beetle in the brush, The bird about the creek, The bee within the hush, And I, whose love was meek, Stood still to hear these speak

The language that records, In flower-syllables, The hieroglyphic words Of beauty, who enspells The world and aye compels.