 | Birds, Bees and Blossoms |  |
109
THE HARE-BELL.
Mistake me not for the blue bell of Spring;I can only be seen when the corn reapers sing:
When Summer her long leaves casts on the ground,
And the fern's turning red, then may I be found.
No slenderer stem doth a wild flower show
Than the light limber stalk on which my bells blow;
And there isn't a flower that bears such a blue,
For mine is the only one you can call “true.”
A breeze which the light thistle down will not spread,
Makes me shake all my bells and keep nodding my head;
And a breath that the tall feathered grasses won't move,
Makes me shake as if March winds were rocking the grove.
Oh, I love to hear the ripe golden corn rustle,
The glad shout of harvest and all its loud bustle;
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As they're borne through the lanes, and shake down the leaves:
To hear the brown reapers all clapping their hands,
And the shouts of the gleaners from off the cleared lands.
Had I but grown in the green lap of Spring,
None of these sounds unto me could she bring;
No voices of children who blackberrying go,
Who pull down the wild crabs and pluck the black sloe.
And oh! what a pleasure I've felt as I stood
And heard the glad nutters shout in the green wood,
And felt some blue eye all its love on me shower,
And a sweet voice exclaim, “What a beautiful flower!
I'll pluck it and wear it, for it is true blue.”
What a pleasure to be near a heart that is true,
Where neither deceit nor falsehood can reign;—
Who wouldn't be plucked such a true friend to gain?
To me the sweet pleasure is more than the pain.
A real noble nature would suffer and perish,
For the sake of the loved ones it laboured to cherish.
But I am forgetting I'm only a flower,
And the pleasure I give can but last a brief hour.
Though my life is so short I will not repine,
For the blue-bell's of Spring is not happier than mine.
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