132 NATURE STUDY. 



Warming the damp sod into bloom, 

 And smiling off the thicket's gloom ? 



" At morning, down the wood-path cool 

 The fluttering leaves make cheerful talk ; 



After the stifled day at school, 

 I hear, along my homeward walk, 



The airy wisdom of the wood, 



Far easiest to be understood. 



" I whisper to the winds ; I kiss 

 The rough old oak, and clasp his bark ; 



No farewell of the thrush I miss ; 

 I lift the soft veil of the dark, 



And say to bird and breeze and tree, 



4 Good-night ! Good friends you are to me ! ' " 



LUCY LARCOM 



for boyhood's time of June, 

 Crowding years in one brief moon, 

 When all things I heard or saw, 

 Me, their master, waited for. 



1 was rich in flowers and trees ; 

 Humming birds and honey bees ; 



^ For my sport the squirrel played, 



Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 

 For my taste the blackberry cone 

 Purpled over hedge and stone. 

 Laughed the brook for my delight 

 Through the day and through the night, 

 Whispering at the garden wall, 

 Talked with me from fall to fall. 

 Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 

 Mine the walnut slopes beyond, 

 Mine on bending orchard trees 

 Apples of Hesperides! 

 Still, as my horizon grew, 

 Larger grew my riches too. 



