 | Massachusetts and other poems |  |
52
SUMMER-MUSINGS.
Sunlight around me danceth! shadows creep
Across my sight, and vanish; balmy airs
Float up and down around me; gentle flowers,
Green, waving trees, and golden-plumag'd birds,
Painted and fanciful butterflies, and bees,
Buzzing and circling round;—all summer life!
All that doth make the forest beautiful—
All that doth speak of joy—is round me now.
There is a little brooklet at my feet,
Purling and whispering, as if its breast
Labored with some huge secret, which it fain
Would tell to me. And there, beneath the bank
All green and mossy, where the willows hang
In beautiful festoons—within that nook—
The silver-pinioned troutling glideth slow.
Across my sight, and vanish; balmy airs
Float up and down around me; gentle flowers,
Green, waving trees, and golden-plumag'd birds,
Painted and fanciful butterflies, and bees,
Buzzing and circling round;—all summer life!
All that doth make the forest beautiful—
All that doth speak of joy—is round me now.
There is a little brooklet at my feet,
Purling and whispering, as if its breast
Labored with some huge secret, which it fain
Would tell to me. And there, beneath the bank
All green and mossy, where the willows hang
In beautiful festoons—within that nook—
The silver-pinioned troutling glideth slow.
Yonder, upon a fall'n and mossy oak,
That once in majesty o'ertopped the scene,
Creepeth a lazy caterpillar, with a dull
And measured listlessness. Perchance, as now,
With slow, monotonous march, he crawleth on,
He dreameth with a trusting hopefulness
Of light and beauty in his crysalis-birth;
And so plods perseveringly along,
Sustained and strengthened.
May I learn from him
To bear this caterpillar-load of life,
Until from heaven shall fall my spirit-wings!
That once in majesty o'ertopped the scene,
Creepeth a lazy caterpillar, with a dull
And measured listlessness. Perchance, as now,
With slow, monotonous march, he crawleth on,
He dreameth with a trusting hopefulness
Of light and beauty in his crysalis-birth;
And so plods perseveringly along,
Sustained and strengthened.
May I learn from him
To bear this caterpillar-load of life,
Until from heaven shall fall my spirit-wings!
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