ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 241 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 



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 hour-glass 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 song-birds in a row, 

 Waiting my choice to open with full breast, 

 And beg an alms of spring-time, ne'er denied 

 Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods 

 Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year. 



July breathes hot, sallows the crispy fields, 

 Curls up the wan leaves of the lilac-hedge, 

 And every eve cheats us with show of clouds 

 That braze the horizon's western rim, of hang 

 Motionless, with heaped canvas drooping idly, 

 Like a dim fleet by starving men besieged, 

 Conjectured half, and half described afar, 

 Helpless of wind, and seeming to slip back 

 Adown the smooth curve of the oily sea. 



But June is full of invitations sweet, 



Forth from the chimney's yawn and thrice-read tomes 



To leisurely delights and sauntering thoughts 



That brook no ceiling narrower than the blue. 



The cherry, drest for bridal, at my pane 



Brushes, then listens, Will he come ? 



The bee, 



All dusty as a miller, takes his toll 

 Of powder)' gold and grumbles. What a dav 

 To sun me and do nothing! Xay. I think 

 Merely to bask and ripen is sometimes 

 The student's wiser business ; the brain 

 That forages all climes to line its cells, 

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