Of texts which wait with saddle on and bridle

To hunt down atheists to their ugly idol.

XXIV.

Sent to reward my faith, I know him well."

XXVII.

""Twas Vishnu, thou vile whirligig!" and so

fully employed;

anew;

One would have sworn the sky was black as sloe,

those?

UNDER THE WILLOWS. FRANK-HEARTED hostess of the field and wood,

Gypsy, whose roof is every spreading tree,

June is the pearl of our New England year.

Still a surprisal, though expected long,

Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait,

Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, Then, from some southern ambush in the sky,

With one great gush of blossom storms the world.

A week ago the sparrow was divine; The bluebird, shifting his light load of song

From post to post along the cheer

less fence,

Was as a rhymer ere the poet come; But now, O rapture! sunshine

winged and voiced,

Pipe blown through by the warm

wild breath of the West

Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud, Gladness of woods, skies, waters,

all in one,

The bobolink has come, and, like

the soul

Of the sweet season vocal in a bird, Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what

Save June! Dear June! Now God

be praised for June.

May is a pious fraud of the almanac, A ghastly parody of real Spring Shaped out of snow and breathed

with eastern wind; Or if, o'er-confident, she trust the date,

And, with her handful of anemones, Herself as shivery, steal into the

sun,

The season need but turn his hourglass round,

And_Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear,

Reels back, and brings the dead May in his arms,

Her budding breasts and wan dislustred front

With frosty streaks and drifts of his white beard

All overblown. Then, warmly walled with books,

While my wood-fire supplies the sun's defect,

Whispering old forest-sagas in its dreams,

I take my May down from the happy shelf

Where perch the world's rare songbirds in a row,

Waiting my choice to open with ́ full breast,

And beg an alms of spring-time,

ne'er denied

The bee,

All dusty as a miller, takes his toll

Of powdery gold, and grumbles. What a day

To sun me and do nothing! Nay, I think

Merely to bask and ripen is sometimes

The student's wiser business; the brain

That forages all climes to line its cells,

Ranging both worlds on lightest wings of wish,

Will not distil the juices it has sucked

To the sweet substance of pellucid

thought,

Except for him who hath the secret learned

To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take

The winds into his pulses. Hush! 'tis he!

My oriole, my glance of summer fire,

Is come at last, and, ever, on the watch,

Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound About the bough to help his housekeeping,

Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck,

Yet fearing me who laid it in his way,

Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs,

Divines the providence that hides and helps.

Heave, ho! Heave, ho! he whistles as the twine Slackens its hold; once more now! and a flash

Lightens across the sunlight to the elm

Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt.

Nor all his booty is the thread; he trails

My loosened thought with it along the air,

And I must follow, would I ever find