Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/94

Rh

Yon old forsaken nests Returning spring shall cheer, And thence the unfledged robin breathe His greeting wild and clear; And from yon clustering vine, That wreathes the casement round, The humming-birds' unresting wing Send forth a whirring sound;

And where alternate springs The lilach's purple spire Fast by its snowy sister's side; Or where, with wing of fire, The kingly oriole glancing went Amid the foliage rare, Shall many a group of children tread, But mine will not be there.

Fain would I know what forms The mastery here shall keep, What mother in yon nursery fair Rock her young babes to sleep: Yet blessings on the hallow'd spot, Though here no more I stray, And blessings on the stranger-babes Who in those halls shall play.

Heaven bless you, too, my plants, And every parent bird That here, among the woven boughs, Above its young hath stirr'd.