To ——. Lines written after a Summer Day’s Excursion

FAIR Nature’s priestesses to whom,

In hieroglyph of bud and bloom,

Her mysteries are told;

Who, wise in lore of wood and mead,

The seasons’ pictured scrolls can read,

In lessons manifold!

Thanks for the courtesy, and gay

Good-humor, which on Washing Day

Our ill-timed visit bore;

Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke

The morning dreams of Artichoke,

Along his wooded shore!

Varied as varying Nature’s ways,

Sprites of the river, woodland fays,

Or mountain nymphs, ye seem;

Free-limbed Dianas on the green,

Loch Katrine’s Ellen, or Undine,

Upon your favorite stream.

The forms of which the poets told,

The fair benignities of old,

Were doubtless such as you;

What more than Artichoke the rill

Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill

Arcadia’s mountain-view?

No sweeter bowers the bee delayed,

In wild Hymettus’ scented shade,

Than those you dwell among;

Snow-flowered azaleas, intertwined

With roses, over banks inclined

With trembling harebells hung!

A charmëd life unknown to death,

Immortal freshness Nature hath;

Her fabled fount and glen

Are now and here: Dodona’s shrine

Still murmurs in the wind-swept pine,—

All is that e’er hath been.

The Beauty which old Greece or Rome

Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home;

We need but eye and ear

In all our daily walks to trace

The outlines of incarnate grace,

The hymns of gods to hear!

1851.