Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/142

84 Like eyelids, curtain o'er the orb, whose hour

Of sleep is well nigh come. Oh! 'tis so calm,

So still, so holy, I could think each power

Of sin and sorrow from the earth had flown,

And Peace descending claimed it for her own,

Shedding from out her dove-like wings the balm

Which fills the evening air.

See, how the arrowy dragon-flies dart out!

Now here, now there,

They swiftly flit about;

Restless, as if we roused them from still sleep,

'Mid the tall river grass. Ha! what is that?

Start not—'tis only a poor water-rat

Crossing the river to his nest, that deep

'Neath yon old willow he has burrowed out.

See him, now, steering over;—his long tail

Extended for a rudder; and his route

Leaves on the glassy stream a double trail

Stretching out, fork-like, to the farther bank,

Where, from green nooks of Summer foliage rank,

Peeps Myosotis—fair "Forget-me-not,"

Looking with her bright blue eyes into ours,

As though to ask, if, 'midst earth's rainbowed bowers,

We ever had her gentle face forgot.

The willows and "long purples," too, recall

To fancy's eye the sad and fatal spot

Where poor Ophelia, with her coronal

Of wild-wood flow'rets, fell.