The heavy apple-trees
Are shaking off their snow in breezy play;
The frail anemones
Have fallen, fading, from the lap of May;
Lanterned with white, the chestnut branches wave,
And all the woods are gay.
Come, children, come away,
And we will make a flower-bed to-day
About our dear one's grave.
O, if we could but tell the wild-flowers where
Lies his dear head, gloried with sunny hair,
So noble and so fair,
How would they haste to bloom and weep above
The heart that loved them with so fond a love!
Come, children, come!

A year ago this day, my girl,
The clover told a thing to you,
Amid the stir and noisy whirl
Of wheels, as toward his home we flew;
And now you know how fond and true
The thing the clover said to you.

With modest mirth and girlish grace,
You took the gift and lightly smiled;
You pressed it softly to your face,
(What wonder that the flower grew wild!)
And now, in thought, again we trace,
The clover bloom, the girlish grace.

Over the self-same road again
You journey, — yours the homeward way;

De warters keeps er-risin' an' er-risin' on de bank,
De lebies keeps er breakin' an' de plows am en de wet,
De niggers all vamousin' ter de dry lan' ever'whar',
But dis nigger hain't er gwine ter leab de ole plantation yet.

De young uns all kin make new homes an' prosper anywhar',
An' 'buse de lan' dat borned 'em w'en dey moves out fum de State,
But de years is w'arin' on me, an' dar's sumpen I cain't tote,
Hid upon de ole plantation here, an' here I gwine ter wait.

All night I hears de paddles an' er sumpen en de a'r, —

De sun he look out frough de wood,
All on Friday mornin',
Den he kiver up he face wid er big gray hood,
All on Friday mornin';

De lark she riz up f'om de dew,
All on Friday mornin',
But de jaybird he got work ter do,
All on Friday mornin'.
Don' you hear dat blue jay call,
Don' you hear de dead sticks fall?—
He totin' down firewood fur we all,
All on Friday mornin'.

De sap-sucker work wid he ax an' pick,
All on Friday mornin',
But oh! dat jaybird make me sick,
All on Friday mornin';

Whenever a snow-flake leaves the sky,
It turns and turns to say — Good-bye!
Good-bye, dear cloud, so cool and gray! —
Then lightly travels on its way.

And when a snow-flake finds a tree,
— Good-day! — it says — — Good-day to thee!
Thou art so bare and lonely, dear,
I 'll rest, and call my comrades here. —

But when a snow-flake, brave and meek,
Lights on a rosy maiden's cheek,
It starts — — How warm and soft the day!
'T is summer! — — and it melts away.

She is neither pretty, nor fair, nor young,
Her paean of joy has long been sung;
And the soft, bright tresses are snowy with years,
And the dark-brown eyes have been dimmed with tears.
There are wrinkles where dimples were wont to hide,
And a crease where the faultless white 'kerchief is tied;
But the dainty old lace is as pure as truth
That rests on the hands, once the pride of her youth.
There 's a picture hid deep in the tender old heart,
And sometimes in secret the warm tears will start,
But what of her history, nobody knows,

Broken, like a shaft of moonlight,
Falling, falling, —
Like a spirit of the marsh-reeds
Calling, calling!
Like a shadow where the dove mourns in its passing,
Like a hush upon the sleeping waters glassing,
Drifts the essence of the soul.

The grain has been stript in the husking, —
Naked, bared, —
The germ had been loosed from its prison,
Where it fared;
Earth but saw its own poor earthly token,
Earth but felt the clay-mould crushed and broken,
Paradise received a Living Thing.

Some day I shall be dead, and pride
Which kept me from your feet,
Shall be the burden of the song
My cold lips shall repeat.

And some day when you too shall find
A pillow in the sod,
Would you then spurn an hour with me
Above — where daisies nod?

I

Brighter than gem on the brow of the royal,
They 'broider the hem of the robe of the Morning;
Richer than red drops that gleam in the wine-cup,
They silver the tops of the blossoms of dawning;
The earth-stars hold
The mellow gold
Flung by the sunbeam to kiss the fair crysmals,
They shatter the stream of the pale yellow barring;
Breaking the shaft of the tiny moat arrows,
They dimple and laugh at the sunlight's gay warring.

II

Clinging to kiss the pink cheeks of the daisy,
They shimmer like diamonds amid the sweet clover,

Ye shall not hurt the grass of the earth
That grows so gently on down and hill —
When I had nowhere to lay my head
The lush green couch of it held me still,

And I blessed the softness of the grass
And the grateful shade of the wayside tree
On the highway to Jerusalem
And down the roads of Galilee.

The live oak shadowed me from the sun,
The sycamore and the lonely pine
Tented me off from the chill of dew
In the long night vigils that were mine.

There was never a green thing did me hurt