The Woodpath

Here Spring her first frail violets blows; Broadcast her whitest wind-flowers sows Through starry mosses amber-fair, And fronded ferns and briar-rose, Hart's-tongue and maidenhair.

Here fungus life is beautiful; Slim mushroom and the thick toadstool,-- As various colored as are blooms,-- Dot their damp cones through shadows cool, And breathe forth rain perfumes.

Here stray the wandering cows to rest; The calling cat-bird builds its nest In spicewood bushes dark and deep; Here raps the woodpecker its best, And here young rabbits leap.

Beech, oak, and cedar; hickories; The pawpaw and persimmon trees; And tangled vines and sumac-brush, Make dark the daylight, where the bees Drone, and the wood-springs gush.

Here to pale melancholy moons, In haunted nights of dreamy Junes, Wails wildly the weird whippoorwill, Whose strains, like those the owlet croons, Wild woods with phantoms fill.