V.

THE SUN'S WOOING.

The sun just touched the morning; The morning, happy thing, Supposed that he had come to dwell, And life would be all spring.

She felt herself supremer, -- A raised, ethereal thing; Henceforth for her what holiday!

Meanwhile, her wheeling king

Trailed slow along the orchards His haughty, spangled hems, Leaving a new necessity, -- The want of diadems!

The morning fluttered, staggered, Felt feebly for her crown, -- Her unanointed forehead Henceforth her only one.

VI.

THE ROBIN.

The robin is the one That interrupts the morn With hurried, few, express reports When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one That overflows the noon With her cherubic quant.i.ty, An April but begun.

The robin is the one That speechless from her nest Submits that home and certainty And sanct.i.ty are best.

VII.

THE b.u.t.tERFLY'S DAY.

From coc.o.o.n forth a b.u.t.terfly As lady from her door Emerged -- a summer afternoon -- Repairing everywhere,

Without design, that I could trace, Except to stray abroad On miscellaneous enterprise The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen Contracting in a field Where men made hay, then struggling hard With an opposing cloud,

Where parties, phantom as herself, To Nowhere seemed to go In purposeless circ.u.mference, As 't were a tropic show.

And notwithstanding bee that worked, And flower that zealous blew, This audience of idleness Disdained them, from the sky,

Till sundown crept, a steady tide, And men that made the hay, And afternoon, and b.u.t.terfly, Extinguished in its sea.

VIII.

THE BLUEBIRD.

Before you thought of spring, Except as a surmise, You see, G.o.d bless his suddenness, A fellow in the skies Of independent hues, A little weather-worn, Inspiriting habiliments Of indigo and brown.

With specimens of song, As if for you to choose, Discretion in the interval, With gay delays he goes To some superior tree Without a single leaf, And shouts for joy to n.o.body But his seraphic self!

IX.

APRIL.

An altered look about the hills; A Tyrian light the village fills; A wider sunrise in the dawn; A deeper twilight on the lawn; A print of a vermilion 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 its annual reply.

X.

THE SLEEPING FLOWERS.

"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?"

"'T is daisy in the shortest; A little farther on, Nearest the door to wake the first, Little leontodon.

"'T is iris, sir, and aster, Anemone and bell, Batschia 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 bed-time 't is," she said; "The b.u.mble-bees will wake them When April woods are red."

XI.