12

THE BREATHING EARTH.

By errantry of subtile winds that blow
From fields where late the snow
Did drift and cling;

By grateful odors borne from forest mold,
Where last year's leaves enfold
Some blooming thing;

By healing essence, lifeful airs, unbound
From the dark, humid ground

Fast mellowing,

Whence, from the smoking, furrowed clods, still come The gnats with ceaseless hum

And hovering.

The breathing earth! I breathe, and well I guess

THE DREAMER.

Он, not for her the early violet,

The swarm-like buds upon the fruit-trees set,
The robin singing in the first Spring rain.
She will have gone ere these can come again.

And therefore is it that soft, pitying Sleep,
Each night, by ways the Winter cannot keep,
Brings her where bloom the flowers her childhood knew
In griefless places kissed by sun and dew.

(13)

SNOWDROPS.

IN snowdrops, well I ween,
A loving-cup is seen,

A pledge betwixt soft Spring
And the frore-bearded King;
For see the chalice shows
White as the Winter's snows,
Save, here, brim-stains of green;
'Tis plain what these should mean,
So
many times the lip

Of Spring did touch and sip.

ANEMONE.

"THOU faintly blushing, dawn-like bloom That springest on the April path, Set round with shivering leafy gloom 'Mong thy companions frail and rath, Why spurnest thou the golden sun,

Whom all with still delight receive? Some unknown love thy heart hath won, And whispers thee at morn and eve! How may this be, how may this be, O rare Anemone?"

"The wind my sunshine is; the wind,
That many a trembling flower affrays,
Alone my sweetness can unbind,
Alone my drooping eye upraise.

And when my thread of life shall break,
And when I cast my raiment white,
Me gently will the rough wind take

And bear along his boundless flight.
He calleth me, 'Be free, be free,
My own Anemone!'"

SNOWDROPS.

IN snowdrops, well I ween,
A loving-cup is seen,

A pledge betwixt soft Spring And the frore-bearded King; For see! the chalice shows White as the Winter's snows, Save, here, brim-stains of gr "Tis plain what these should many times the lip

So

Of Spring did touch and sip