Crab apples laugh, wind-tumbled from above.

Runs thro' the wasted leaves the crickets' click,
Which saddest coignes of Melancholy cheers;
One bird unto the sumach flits to pick
Red, sour seeds; and thro' the woods one hears
The drop of gummy walnuts; the railed rick
Looms tawny in the field where low the steers.

Some slim bud-bound Leimoniad hath flocked,
The birds to Echo's shores, where flossy foams
Boom low long cream-white cliffs.--Where once buzzed
Unmillioned bees within unmillioned blooms,
One hairy hummer cramps one bloom, frost mocked,--rocked
A miser whose rich hives squeeze oozing combs.

Twist some lithe maple and right suddenly
A leafy storm of stars about you breaks--
Some Hamadryad's tears: Unto her knee
Wading the Naiad clears her brook that streaks
Thro' wadded waifs: Hark! Pan for Helike
Flutes melancholy by the minty creeks.

AN ANEMONE.

"Teach me the wisdom of thy beauty, pray,
That, being thus wise, I may aspire to see
What beauty is, whence, why, and in what way
Immortal, yet how mortal utterly:
For, shrinking loveliness, thy brow of day
Pleads plaintive as a prayer, anemone.

"Teach me wood-wisdom, I am petulant:
Thou hast the wildness of a Dryad's eyes,
The shyness of an Oread's, wild plant:--
Behold the bashful goddess where she lies
Distinctly delicate!--inhabitant
Ambrosial-earthed, star-cousin of the skies.

"Teach me thy wisdom, for, thro' knowing, yet,
When I have drunk dull Lethe till each vein
Thuds full oblivion, I shall not forget;--
For beauty known is beauty; to sustain
Glad memories with life, while mad regret
And sorrow perish, being Lethe slain."

"Teach thee my beauty being beautiful
And beauty wise?--My slight perfections, whole
As world, as man, in their creation full
As old a Power's cogitation roll.
Teach thee?--Presumption! thought is young and dull--
Question thy God what God is, soul what soul."

THE RAIN-CROW.

Thee freckled August, dozing hot and blonde
Oft 'neath a wheat-stack in the white-topped mead--
In her full hair brown ox-eyed daisies wound--
O water-gurgler, lends a sleepy heed:
Half-lidded eyes a purple iron-weed
Blows slimly o'er; beyond, a path-found pond
Basks flint-bright, hedged with pink-plumed pepper-grasses,
A coigne for vainest dragonflies, which glasses