n the beechen knoll,
My soul hath seen their faces,
My soul hath met their races,
And felt their dim control.

IV.

Crab-apple buds, whose bells
The mouth of April kissed;
That hang,--like rosy shells
Around a naiad's wrist,--
Pink as dawn-tinted mist.

And paw-paw buds, whose dark
Deep auburn blossoms shake
On boughs,--as 'neath the bark
A dryad's eyes awake,--
Brown as a midnight lake.

These, with symbolic blooms
Of wind-flower and wild-phlox,
I found among the glooms
Of hill-lost woods and rocks,
Lairs of the mink and fox.

The beetle in the brush,
The bird about the creek,
The bee within the hush,
And I, whose heart was meek,
Stood still to hear these speak.

The language, that records,
In flower-syllables,
The hieroglyphic words
Of beauty, who enspells
The world and aye compels.

THE WIND AT NIGHT

I.

Not till the wildman wind is shrill,
Howling upon the hill
In every wolfish tree, whose boisterous boughs,
Like desperate arms, gesture and beat the night,
And down huge clouds, in chasms of stormy white
The frightened moon hurries above the house,
Shall I lie down; and, deep,--
Letting the mad wind keep
Its shouting revel round me,--fall asleep.

II.

Not till its dark halloo is hushed,
And where wild waters rushed,--
Like some hoofed terror underneath its whip
And spur of foam,--remains
A ghostly glass, hill-framed; whereover stains
Of moony mists and rains,
And stealthy starbeams, like vague specters, slip;
Shall I--with thoughts that take
Unto themselves the ache
Of silence as a sound--from sleep awake.

AIRY TONGUES

I.

I hear a song the wet leaves lisp
When Morn comes down the woodland way;
And misty as a thistle-wisp
Her gown gleams windy gray;
A song, that seems to say,
"Awake! 'tis day!"

I hear a sigh, when Day sits down
Beside the sunlight-lulled lagoon;
While on her glistening hair and gown
The rose of rest is strewn;
A sigh, that seems to croon,
"Come sleep! 'tis noon!"

I hear a whisper, when the stars,
Upon some evening-purpled height,
Crown the dead Day with nenuphars
Of dreamy gold and white;
A voice, that seems t' invite,
"Come love! 'tis night!"

II.

Before the rathe song-sparrow sings
Among the hawtrees in the lane,
And to the wind the locust flings
Its early clusters fresh with ra