he April weather,
When the snows have flown in the brooklet's flood,
And the Showers and Sunshine sport together,
And the proud Bough boasts of the baby Bud;
On the hillside brown, where the dead leaves linger
In crackling layers, all crimped and curled,
She parts their folds with a timid finger,
And shyly peeps at the waking world.

The roystering West Wind flies to greet her,
And bids her haste, with a gleeful shout:
The quickening Saplings bend to meet her,
And the first green Grass-blades call, "Come out!"
So, venturing forth with a dainty neatness,
In gown of pink or in white arrayed,
She comes once more in her fresh completeness,
A modest, fair little Pilgrim Maid.

Her fragrant petals, their beauties showing,
Creep out to sprinkle the hill and dell,
Like showers of Stars in the shadows glowing,
Or Snowflakes blossoming where they fell;
And the charmed Wood leaps into joyous blooming,
As though't were touched by a Fairy's ring,
And the glad Earth scents, in the rare perfuming,
The first sweet breath of the new-born Spring.

* * * * *

MAY MEMORIES

To my office window, gray,
Come the sunbeams in their play,
Come the dancing, glancing sunbeams, airy fairies of the May;
Like a breath of summer-time,
Setting Memory's bells a-chime,
Till their jingle seems to mingle with the measure of my rhyme.

And above the tramp of feet,
And the clamor of the street,
I can hear the thrush's singing, ringing high and clear and sweet,--
Hear the murmur of the breeze
Through the bloom-starred apple trees,
And the ripples softly splashing and the dashing of the seas;

See the shadow and the shine
Where the glossy branches twine,
And the ocean's sleepy tuning mocks the crooning in the pine;
Hear the catbird whistle shrill
In the bushes by the rill,
Where the violets toss and twinkle as they sprinkle vale and hill;

Feel the tangled meadow-grass
On my bare feet as I pass;
See the clover bending over in a dew-bespangled mass;
See the cottage by the shore,
With the pansy beds before,
And the old familiar places and the faces at the door.

[Illustration]

Oh, the skies of blissful blue,
Oh, the woodland's verdant hue,--
Oh, the lazy days of boyhood, when the world was fair and new!
Still to me your tale is told
In the summer's sunbeam's gold,
And my truant fancy straying, goes a-Maying as of old.

* *