Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by the snow-white choir.
At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;
The gay enchantment was undone,

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;

I leave it behind with the games of youth:

As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club moss burs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and of deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;

Beauty through my senses stole ;

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

THE SNOW-STORM

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the house mates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come, see the north wind's masonry.

Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof

Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swanlike form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Mauger the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

APRIL

The April winds are magical
And thrill our tuneful frames;

The garden walks are passional

To bachelors and dames.

The hedge is gemmed with diamonds,

The air with Cupids full,

The cobweb clues of Rosamond

Guide lovers to the pool.

Each dimple in the water,

Each leaf that shades the rock
Can cozen, pique and flatter,
Can parley and provoke.
Goodfellow, Puck and goblins,
Know more than any book.
Down with your doleful problems,
And court the sunny brook.
The south-winds are quick-witted,
The schools are sad and slow,
The masters quite omitted

The lore we care to know.

FORBEARANCE

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse?
. Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?
And loved so well a high behavior,

In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
Nobility more nobly to repay?

O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

FABLE

The mountain and the squirrel

Had a quarrel,

And the former called the latter "Little Prig;

Bun replied,

"You are doubtless very big;

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together,

To make up a year

And a sphere.

And I think it no disgrace

To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel track;

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut."

THE ENCHANTER

In the deep heart of man a poet dwells
Who all the day of life his summer story tells;
Scatters on every eye dust of his spells,

Scent, form, and color; to the flowers and shells
Wins the believing child with wondrous tales;
Touches a cheek with colors of romance,

And crowds a history into a glance;

Gives beauty to the lake and fountain,

Spies oversea the fires of the mountain;

When thrushes ope their throat, 't is he that sings,
And he that paints the oriole's fiery wings.
The little Shakespeare in the maiden's heart
Makes Romeo of a plough-boy on his cart;
Opens the eye to Virtue's starlike meed
And gives persuasion to a gentle deed.

WOODNOTES

SELECTIONS

'T was one of the charmed days When the genius of God doth flow, The wind may alter twenty ways,

A tempest cannot blow;

It may blow north, it still is warm;

Or south, it still is clear;

Or east, it smells like a clover-farm;
Or west, no thunder fear.

The musing peasant lowly great

Beside the forest water sate;

The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown
Composed the network of his throne;

The wide lake, edged with sand and grass,
Was burnished to a floor of glass,
Painted with shadows green and proud
Of the tree and of the cloud,

He was the heart of all the scene;
On him the sun looked more serene;
To hill and cloud his face was known,-
It seemed the likeness of their own;
They knew by secret sympathy
The public child of earth and sky.
"You ask," he said, "what guide
Me through trackless thickets led,

Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide.
I found the water's bed.

The watercourses were my guide;

I travelled grateful by their side,

Or through their channel dry;

They led me through the thicket damp,
Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp,
Through beds of granite cut my road,
And their resistless friendship showed :
The falling waters led me,

The foodful waters fed me,

And brought me to the lowest land,

Unerring to the ocean sand.

The moss upon the forest bark

Was pole-star when the night was dark;

The purple berries in the wood

Supplied me necessary food;

For Nature ever faithful is

To such as trust her faithfulness.

When the forest shall mislead me,

When the night and morning lie,

When sea and land refuse to feed me,
'T will be time enough to die;
Then will yet my mother yield

A pillow in her greenest field,
Nor the June flowers scorn to cover
The clay of their departed lover."