Page:May-day and other pieces, Emerson, 1867.djvu/117

 NATURE.

I.

INTERS know

Easily to shed the snow,

And the untaught Spring is wise

In cowslips and anemonies.

Nature, hating art and pains,

Baulks and baffles plotting brains;

Casualty and Surprise

Are the apples of her eyes;

But she dearly loves the poor,

And, by marvel of her own,

Strikes the loud pretender down.

For Nature listens in the rose,

And hearkens in the berry's bell,

To help her friends, to plague her foes,