Guarded within the old red wall's embrace, Marshalled like soldiers in gay company, The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace! Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry, With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye Of purple batteries, every gun in place. Forward they come, with flaunting colors spread, With torches burning, stepping out in time To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead, We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime Parades the army. With our utmost powers We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers. AMY LOWELL TULIPS Brave little fellows in crimsons and yellows, Coming while breezes of April are cold, Winter can't freeze you, he flies when he sees you Thrusting your spears through the redolent mold. Jolly Dutch flowers, rejoicing in showers, Drink! ere the pageant of Spring passes by! Hold your carousals to Robin's espousals, Lifting rich cups for the wine of the sky! Dignified urbans in glossy silk turbans, Burgherlike blossoms of gardens and squares, Nodding so solemn by fountain and column, What is the talk of your weighty affairs? Pollen and honey (for such is your money),-- Gossip and freight of the chaffering bee,-- Prospects of growing,--what colors are showing,-- News of rare tulips from over the sea? Loitering near you, how often I hear you, Just ere your petals at twilight are furled, Laugh through the grasses while Evelyn passes, "There goes the loveliest flower in the world!" ARTHUR GUITERMAN A WHITE IRIS Tall and clothed in samite, Chaste and pure, In smooth armor,-- Your head held high In its helmet Of silver: Jean D'Arc riding Among the sword blades! Has Spring for you Wrought visions, As it did for her In a garden? PAULINE B. BARRINGTON MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE May is building her house. With apple blooms She is roofing over the glimmering rooms; Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams, And, spinning all day at her secret looms, With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall She pictureth over, and peopleth it all With echoes and dreams, And singing of streams. May is building her house of petal and blade; Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made, With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover, Each small miracle over and over, And tender, travelling green things strayed. Her windows the morning and evening star, And her rustling doorways, ever ajar With the coming and going Of fair things blowing, The thresholds of the four winds are.