Say what you like,
All things love me!
I pick no flowers —
That wins the Bee.

The Summer's Moths
Think my hand one —
To touch their wings —
With Wind and Sun.

The garden Mouse
Comes near to play;
Indeed, he turns
His eyes away.

The Wren knows well
I rob no nest;
When I look in,
She still will rest.

The hedge stops Cows.
Or they would come
After my voice
Right to my home.

The Horse can tell,
Straight from my lip,
My hand could not
Hold any whip.

The thing I count and hold as fealty —
The only fealty to give or take —
Doth never reckoning keep, and coldly make
Bond to itself with this or that to be
Content as wage; the wage unpaid, to free
Its hand from service, and its love forsake,
Its faith cast off, as one from dreams might wake
At morn, and smiling watch the vision flee.
Such fealty is treason in disguise.
Who trusts it, his death-warrant sealed doth bear.
Love looks at it with angry, wondering eyes;
Love knows the face true fealty doth wear,

I have found out a gift for my fair;
I know where the fossils abound,
Where the footprints of Aves declare
The birds that once walked on the ground
Oh, come, and — in technical speech —
We'll walk this Devonian shore,
Or on some Silurian beach
We'll wander, my love, evermore.

I will show thee the sinuous track
By the slow-moving Annelid made,
Or the Trilobite that, farther back,
In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid;
Thou shalt see, in his Jurassic tomb,
The Plesiosaurus embalmed;
In his Oolitic prime and his bloom,

O MONTH when they who love must love and wed!
Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,
And seek to tell the memories he had brought
From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?
I know not if the rosy showers shed
From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought
In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught
The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read
Thee best who in the ancient time did say
Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:
No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day
So subtly sweet as memories which unfold

TO. C. C.

Welcome ! Perhaps the simple word says all.
And yet, when from a country's earnest heart
It sudden springs, quick pride and triumph start,
Eager as love, and even hold in thrall
Of silence love's own speech, while they recall
How in all men's great deeds of life and art
Their native land immortal share and part
Must keep.
But thou, O royal soul, how small
Such laurels unto thee, we know who love
Thee, and whom thou hast loved! We dare to bring

Love's like a game at Tables, where the die
Of maids' affection doth by fortune fly;
Which, when you think you're surest of the same,
Proves but at best a doubtful after-game;
For if they find your fancy in a blot,
It's two to one if then they take you not,
But, being gam'sters, you must boldly venture,
And when you see the point lie open, enter.
Believe me one thing, — nothing brings about
A game half lost so soon as holding out;
And next to holding out, this you shall find,
There's nothing worse than entering still behind.

I HAVE never loved you yet, if now I love.

If Love was born in that bright April sky
And ran unheeding when the sun was high,
And slept as the moon sleeps through Autumn nights
While those clear steady stars burn in their heights:

If Love so lived and ran and slept and woke
And ran in beauty when each morning broke,
Love yet was boylike, fervid and unstable,
Teased with romance, not knowing truth from fable.

But Winter after Autumn comes and stills
The petulant waters and the wild mind fills

Who loves the rain
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.

Home to me is laughter . . .
Kisses on my cheek when they're least expected;
Glances filled with gladness;
The happiness in knowing
I'm a portion of
My family's fulfillment.
Home to me . . . is love!

Home to me is laughter . . .
Kisses on my cheek when they're least expected;
Glances filled with gladness;
The happiness in knowing
I'm a portion of
My family's fulfillment.
Home to me . . . is love!

One great truth in life I've found,
— While journeying to the West —
The only folks we really wound
— Are those we love the best.

The man you thoroughly despise
— Can rouse your wrath, 'tis true;
Annoyance in your heart will rise
— At things mere strangers do.

But those are only passing ills;
— This rule all lives will prove;
The rankling wound which aches and thrills
— Is dealt by hands we love.

The choicest garb, the sweetest grace,
— Are oft to strangers shown;
The careless mien, the frowning face,