TRAILING ARBUTUS. 



Thus by random fancies fettered, with what rapture 



may we greet 

 One who shared our long probation, where the Spring 



and Winter meet ; 

 Wind and snow about her flying, 

 Safe her clustered buds were lying, 

 Folded close in russet woodlands, sheltered from the 



chilly air, 



Sweet her slumbers, all unbroken 

 By a trifler s careless token, 



Till the magic kiss of April laid her virgin passion 

 bare ! 



Then our darling, hid in silence where no careless 



footstep trod, 

 Felt the earliest beams of sunlight quicken in the 



yielding sod ; 



Half confessed her heart s undoing 

 At the south-wind s whispered wooing, 

 Heard the blue-bird s liquid warble dropping all the 

 woodlands thro ; 



16 



