2 yo ARBOR DAY 



Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:* 

 Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! 

 I never thought to ask, I never knew: 

 But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 

 The self-same Power that brought me there brought 

 you. 



THE FIRST DANDELION 



BY WALT WHITMAN 



SIMPLE and fresh and fair from winter's close 



emerging, 

 As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had 



ever been, 

 Forth from its sunny nook of sheltered grass 



innocent, golden, calm as the dawn, 

 The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face. 



SWEET PEAS 



BY JOHN KEATS 



HERE are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight: 

 With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, 

 And taper fingers catching at all things, 



* Compare the chapter on " Beauty," in Emerson's " Nature." 

 " This element (Beauty) I call an ultimate end. No reason can 

 be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. Beauty, in its largest 

 and profoundest sense, is one expression for the universe. . . . 

 The ancient Greeks called the world Beauty." 



