SEEKING THE MAYFLOWER 247 

 SEEKING THE MAYFLOWER* 



BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 



THE sweetest sound our whole year round 



J Tis the first robin of the spring! 

 The song of the full orchard choir 



Is not so fine a thing. 



Glad sights are common: Nature draws 

 Her random pictures through the year, 



But oft her music bids us long 

 Remember those most dear. 



To me, when in the sudden spring 



I hear the earliest robin's lay, 

 With the first trill there comes again 



One picture of the May. 



The veil is parted wide, and lo, 

 A moment though my eyelids close, 



Once more I see that wooded hill 

 Where the arbutus grows. 



I see the village dryad kneel, 



Trailing her slender fingers through 

 The knotted tendrils, as she lifts 



Their pink, pale flowers to view. 



* By permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



