Sylvia Lawson Covey

NIGHT shadows fly. The air is crisp and sweet

With orange fragrance. Golden apples gird

The waxen whiteness of new buds, just stirred

By zephyr’s finger. See him, winging fleet

To where the roses at the house-roof meet,—

That feathered joy, the jocund mocking-bird!

Such songs ecstatic day hath never heard,

Rippling across wide fields of springing wheat.

And still she lingers, loth to rise and fold

The curtaining mist from off the mountain snows;

Flushing with pink the granite gray and old,

Ere low she stoops to paint yon opening rose.

Now from pale clouds the pearl tints fade away,

The garden lies in morning’s garish ray!