Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower, But I could never sell - If you would like to borrow, Until the Daffodil Unties her yellow Bonnet Beneath the village door, Until the Bees, from Clover rows Their Hock, and Sherry, draw, Why, I will lend until just then, But not an hour more! ___ Water, is taught by thirst. Land - by the oceans passed. Transport - by throe - Peace - by it's battles told - Love, by memorial mold - Birds, by the snow. ___ Have you got a Brook in your little heart, Where bashful flowers blow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so - And nobody knows, so still it flows, That any brook is there, And yet your little draught of life Is daily drunken there - Why - look out for the little brook in March, When the rivers overflow, And the snows come hurrying from the fills, And the bridges often go - And later, in August it may be - When the meadows parching lie, Beware, lest this little brook of life, Some burning noon go dry! ___ Flowers - Well - if anybody Can the extasy define - Half a transport - half a trouble - With which flowers humble men: Anybody find the fountain From which floods so contra flow - I will give him all the Daisies Which upon the hillside blow. Too much pathos in their faces For a simple breast like mine - Butterflies from St Domingo Cruising round the purple line - Have a system of aesthetics - Far superior to mine. ___ Pigmy seraphs - gone astray - Velvet people from Vevay - Belles from some lost summer day - Bees exclusive Coterie - Paris could not lay the fold Belted down with emerald - Venice could not show a check Of a tint so lustrous meek - Never such an ambuscade As of briar and leaf displayed For my little damask maid - I had rather wear her grace Than an Earl's distinguished face - I had rather dwell like her Than be "Duke of Exeter" - Royalty enough for me To subdue the Bumblebee. ___ Heart, not so heavy as mine Wending late home - As it passed my window Whistled itself a tune - A careless snatch - a ballad - A Ditty of the street - Yet to my irritated ear An anodyne so sweet - It was as if a Bobolink Sauntering this way Carolled and mused, and carolled - Then bubbled slow away - It was as if a chirping brook Upon a toilsome way Set bleeding feet to minuets Without the knowing why - Tomorrow - night will come again - Perhaps - tired and sore - Oh Bugle, by the window I pray you stroll once more! ___ Soul, Wilt thou toss again? By just such a hazard Hundreds have lost indeed - But tens have won an all - Angel's breathless ballot Lingers to record thee - Imps in eager caucus Raffle for my soul! ___ An altered look about the hills - A Tyrian light the village fills - A wider sunrise in the morn - A deeper twilight on the lawn - A print of a vermillion foot - A purple finger on the slope - A flippant fly upon the pane - A spider at his trade again - An added strut in Chanticleer - A flower expected everywhere - An axe shrill singing in the woods - Fern odors on untravelled roads - All this and more I cannot tell - A furtive look you know as well - And Nicodemus' Mystery Receives it's annual reply! ___ Some, too fragile for winter winds The thoughtful grave encloses - Tenderly tucking them in from frost Before their feet are cold - Never the treasures in her nest The cautious grave exposes, Building where schoolboy dare not look, And sportsman is not bold. This covert have all the children Early aged, and often cold, Sparrow, unnoticed by the Father - Lambs for whom time had not a fold. ___ Whose are the little beds - I asked Which in the valleys lie? Some shook their heads, and others smiled - And no one made reply. Perhaps they did not hear - I said, I will inquire again - Whose are the beds - the tiny beds So thick upon the plain? 'Tis Daisy, in the shortest - A little further on - Nearest the door - to wake the 1^st, Little Leontodon. 'Tis Iris, Sir, and Aster - Anemone, and Bell - Bartsia, in the blanket red, And chubby Daffodil. Meanwhile - at many cradles Her busy foot she plied - Humming the quaintest lullaby That ever rocked a child. Hush! Epigea wakens! The Crocus stirs her lids - Rhodora's cheek is crimson - She's dreaming of the woods! Then turning from them reverent - Their bedtime 'tis, she said - The Bumble bees will wake them When April woods are red. ___ For every Bird a nest - Wherefore in timid quest Some little Wren goes seeking round - Wherefore when boughs are free, Households in every tree, Pilgrim be found? Perhaps a home too high - Ah aristocracy! The little Wren desires - Perhaps of twig so fine - Of twine e'en superfine, Her pride aspires - The Lark is not ashamed To build upon the ground Her modest house - Yet who of all the throng Dancing around the sun Does so rejoice? ___ "They have not chosen me" - he said - "But I have chosen them"! Brave - Broken hearted statement - Uttered in Bethleem! I could not have told it, But since Jesus dared, Sovreign, know a Daisy Thy dishonor shared! ___ She bore it till the simple veins Traced azure on her hand - Till pleading, round her quiet eyes The purple crayons stand. Till Daffodils had come and gone I cannot tell the sum, And then she ceased to bear it - And with the Saints sat down. No more her patient figure At twilight soft to meet - No more her timid bonnet Upon the village street - But crowns instead, and courtiers - And in the midst so fair, Whose but her shy - immortal face Of whom we're whispering here? ___ We should not mind so small a flower - Except it quiet bring Our little garden that we lost Back to the Lawn again. So spicy her Carnations nod - So drunken, reel her Bees - So silver steal a hundred flutes From out a hundred trees - That whoso sees this little flower By faith may clear behold The Bobolinks around the throne And Dandelions gold. ___ This heart that broke so long - These feet that never flagged - This faith that watched for star in vain, Give gently to the dead - Hound cannot overtake the Hare That fluttered panting, here - Nor any schoolboy rob the nest Tenderness builded there. ___ On such a night, or such a night, Would anybody care If such a little figure Slipped quiet from it's chair, So quiet - Oh how quiet, That nobody might know But that the little figure Rocked softer - to and fro - On such a dawn, or such a dawn - Would anybody sigh That such a little figure Too sound asleep did lie For chanticleer to wake it - Or stirring house below - Or giddy bird in orchard - Or early task to do? There was a little figure plump For every little knoll, Busy needles, and spools of thread - And trudging feet from school - Playmates, and holidays, and nuts - And visions vast and small - Strange that the feet so precious charged Should reach so small a goal! ___