Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/348

POEMS OF NATURE The veil is parted wide, and lo,

A moment, though my eyelids close,

Once more I see that wooded hill

Where the arbutus grows.

I see the village dryad kneel,

Trailing her slender fingers through

The knotted tendrils, as she lifts

Their pink, pale flowers to view.

Once more I dare to stoop beside

The dove-eyed beauty of my choice,

And long to touch her careless hair,

And think how dear her voice.

My eager, wandering hands assist

With fragrant blooms her lap to fill,

And half by chance they meet her own,

Half by our young hearts' will.

Till, at the last, those blossoms won,—

Like her, so pure, so sweet, so shy,—

Upon the gray and lichened rocks

Close at her feet I lie.

Fresh blows the breeze through hemlock-trees,

The fields are edged with green below;

And naught but youth and hope and love

We know or care to know!

Hark! from the moss-clung apple-bough,

Beyond the tumbled wall, there broke

That gurgling music of the May,—

'T was the first robin spoke!

I heard it, ay, and heard it not,—

For little then my glad heart wist 318