University of Virginia Library


137

WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

Two little sorrel blossoms, pale and slender,
Lean to each other in the cool, tall grass;
The crowding spears with gallant air and tender,
Shield them completely from the sun's fierce splendor,
Till harmlessly an angry wind might pass.
And I stand smiling with a sudden whim:
“The little innocents! Now am I sure
They think them in a forest grand and dim,
The mighty grass coeval with their birth,—
Shut from the world, from every ill secure,
And where their thicket ends, there ends the earth!”