op upon them, warm and loving,
Tenderest kisses of your mouth.

Touch them with your rosy fingers,
Wake them with your pleasant tread,
Push away the leaf-brown covers,
Over all their faces spread;

Tell them how the sun is waiting
Longer daily in the skies,
Looking for the bright uplifting
Of their softly-fringed eyes.

Call the crow-foot and the crocus,
Call the pale anemone,
Call the violet and the daisy,
Clothed with careful modesty;
Seek the low and humble blossoms,
Of their beauties unaware,
Let the dandelion and fennel,
Show their shining yellow hair.

Bid the little homely sparrows
Chirping, in the cold and rain,
Their impatient sweet complaining,
Sing out from their hearts again;
Bid them set themselves to mating,
Cooing love in softest words,
Crowd their nests, all cold and empty,
Full of little callow birds.

Come up, April, through the valley,
Where the fountain sleeps to-day,
Let him, freed from icy fetters,
Go rejoicing on his way;
Through the flower-enameled meadows
Let him run his laughing race,
Making love to all the blossoms
That o'erlean and kiss his face.

But not birds and blossoms only,
Not alone the streams complain,
Men and maidens too are calling,
Come up, April, come again!
Waiting with the sweet impatience
Of a lover for the hours
They shall set the tender beauty
Of thy feet among the flowers!

AUTUMN

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips
The days, as through the sunset gates they crowd,
And Summer from her golden collar slips
And strays through stubble-fields and moans aloud.

Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,
And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower,
She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,
And tries the old tunes over for an hour.

The wind, whose tender whisper in the May
Set all the young blooms listening through the grove,
Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day
And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.

The rose has taken off her 'tire of red--
The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost,
And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head
Against earth's chilly bosom, witched with frost.

The robin, that was busy all the June,
Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,
Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,
Has given place to the brown cricket now.

The very cock crows lonesomely at morn--
Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides--
Uneasy cattle low, a