e sky:
May is here, waiting,
And here, too, am I.

Why do you shiver so,
Violet sweet?
Soft is the meadow-grass
Under my feet.
Wrapped in your hood of green,
Violet, why
Peep from your earth-door
So silent and shy?

Trickle the little brooks
Close to your bed;
Softest of fleecy clouds
Float overhead;
"Ready and waiting!"
The slender reeds sigh:
"Ready and waiting!"
We sing--May and I.

Come, pretty Violet,
Winter's away:
Come, for without you
May isn't May.
Down through the sunshine
Wings flutter and fly;--
Quick, little Violet,
Open your eye!

Hear the rain whisper,
"Dear Violet, come!"
How can you stay
In your underground home?
Up in the pine-boughs
For you the winds sigh.
Homesick to see you,
Are we--May and I.

Ha! though you care not
For call or for shout,
Yon troop of sunbeams
Are winning you out.
Now all is beautiful
Under the sky:
May's here--and violets!
Winter, good-by!
_Lucy Larcom._

THE BROWN THRUSH

There's a merry brown thrush sitting up in the tree.
"He's singing to me! He's singing to me!"
And what does he say, little girl, little boy?
"Oh, the world's running over with joy!
Don't you hear? Don't you see?
Hush! Look! In my tree,
I'm as happy as happy can be!"

And the brown thrush keeps singing, "A nest do you see,
And five eggs, hid by me in the juniper tree?
Don't meddle! don't touch! little girl, little boy,
Or the world will lose some of its joy!
Now I'm glad! now I'm free!
And I always shall be,
If you never bring sorrow to me."

So the merry brown thrush sings away in the tree,
To you and to me, to you and to me;
And he sings all the day, little girl, little boy,
"Oh, the world's running over with joy!
But long it won't be,
Don't you know? Don't you see?
Unless we are as good as can be!"
_Lucy Larcom._

THE WIND AND THE MOON

Said the Wind to the Moon, "I will blow you out.
You stare
In the air
Like a ghost in a chair,
Always looking what I am about;
I hate to be watched--I'll blow you out."

The Wind blew hard, and out went the Moon.
So deep,
On a heap
Of clouds, to sleep,
Down lay the Wind, and slumbered soon--
Muttering low, "I've done for that Moon."

He turned in his bed; she was there again!
On high
In the sky
With her one ghost eye,