Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/245

 INTRODUCTION.

��AUTHOR TO HIS BOOK IN EARLY SPRING.

Fly with the winds, frail leaves ! The wintry hours

Need ye no more ; let green ones take your place, Since Nature opes once more her book of flowers,

And muffled February, with slow pace Hobbling in storms away, lifts his white sock

From the moist field, and now from all the hills Trickles the new-thawed ice, and down the rock

In every glen some crystal cataract spills. The earth from its long sleep once more is free ; I, too, would break the spell of poesy.

Go, wanderers ! I ask none to take ye in,

But welcome all to harbor ye who will ; And who cares least your fellowship to win

Is welcome most to leave ye fluttering still. Farewell ! On none intrude ! The world is wide ;

Go uncommended, dressed in plain attire, That none may save ye for a fair outside

Who, if mean clad, had cast ye to the fire. If ye be worthless, ye shall die, no doubt ; If ye be worthy, worth shall find ye out.

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