How it knows of the wings of the hawk ere it swings From the drippled dew scintillant seen! Where the redbird hides, ere it flies or sings, In melodious quiverings of green! How the sun to the dogwood such kisses brings That it laughs into blossoms of wonderful sheen; While the wind, to the strings of his lute that rings, Makes love to apple and nectarine, Till the sap in them rosily springs. Go seek in the ray for a sworded fay, The chestnut's buds into blooms that rips; And look in the brook, that runs laughing gay, For the Nymph with the laughing lips; In the brake for the Dryad whose eyes are gray, From whose bosom the perfume drips; The Faun hid away, where the branches sway, Thick ivy low down on his hips, Pursed lips on a syrinx at play. So, ho! for the rose, the Romeo rose, And the lyric it hides in its heart! And, oh, for the epic the oak-tree knows, Sonorous as Homer in art! And it's ho! for the prose of the weed that grows Green-writing Earth's commonest part!-- What God may propose let us learn of those, The songs and the dreams that start In the heart of each blossom that blows. A SPRING SHOWER We stood where the fields were beryl, The redolent woodland was warm; And the heaven above us, now sterile, Was alive with the pulse-winds of storm. We had watched the green wheat brighten And gloom as it winced at each gust; And the turbulent maples whiten As the lane blew gray with dust. White flakes from the blossoming cherry, Pink snows of the peaches were blown, And star-bloom wrecks of the berry And dogwood petals were sown. Then instantly heaven was sullied, And earth was thrilled with alarm, As a cloud, that the thunder had gullied, Thrust over the sunlight its arm. The birds to dry coverts had hurried, And hid in their leafy-built rooms; And the bees and the hornets had buried Themselves in the bells of the blooms. Then down from the clouds, as from towers, Rode slant the tall lancers of rain, And charged the fair troops of the flowers, And trampled the grass of the plain. And the armies of blossoms were scattered; Their standards hung draggled and lank; And the rose and the lily were shattered, And the iris lay crushed on its bank. But high in the storm was the swallow, And the rock-loud voice of the fall, From its ramparts of forest, rang hollow Defiance and challenge o'er all. But the storm and its clouds passed over, And left but one cloud in the west, Wet wafts that were fragrant with clover, And the sun slow-sinking to rest. Rain-drippings and rain in the poppies, And scents as of honey and bees; A touch of wild light on the coppice, That turned into flames the drenched trees.