Here Spring her first frail violets blows;
Broadcast her whitest wind-flowers sows
Through starry mosses amber-fair,
And fronded ferns and briar-rose,
Hart's-tongue and maidenhair.
Here fungus life is beautiful;
Slim mushroom and the thick toadstool,--
As various colored as are blooms,--
Dot their damp cones through shadows cool,
And breathe forth rain perfumes.
Here stray the wandering cows to rest;
The calling cat-bird builds its nest
In spicewood bushes dark and deep;
Here raps the woodpecker its best,
And here young rabbits leap.
Beech, oak, and cedar; hickories;
The pawpaw and persimmon trees;
And tangled vines and sumac-brush,
Make dark the daylight, where the bees
Drone, and the wood-springs gush.
Here to pale melancholy moons,
In haunted nights of dreamy Junes,
Wails wildly the weird whippoorwill,
Whose strains, like those the owlet croons,
Wild woods with phantoms fill.