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From “Songs of Many Moods”
THERE is no flower that would hide from him | |
| The mystic secret that the woodland knows— | |
| Not johnny-jump-ups in the shadows dim, | |
| Not foxglove nor the delicate pale rose, | |
| Nor any smallest forest thing that grows. | 5 |
| For he is lover and interpreter | |
| To all shy life that blooms or sings, or goes | |
| Fur-clad or wingèd. He knows every burr, | |
| That clings to Summer’s hem, and each brown insect’s whir. | |
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| He loves the screech-owl and the screaming jay; | 10 |
| His heart is tender to the fleet-winged swallow, | |
| To sea-gulls and to sparrows at their play, | |
| And to the hook-beaked hawks that swiftly follow. | |
| The marsh-hen, building by the sedgy shallow, | |
| Is not more gentle with her brood than he, | 15 |
| Who finds her nest beside the tall rose-mallow, | |
| And lifts aside the fern, that he may see | |
| Her little fledglings there, and woo them cunningly. | |
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| For him the forest is shot through with song— | |
| Wren-song and thrush-song thrilling from the trees, | 20 |
| Bee-song shut close in mountain-pink; and strong | |
| Sweet arrowy notes from bugles of the breeze. | |
| With a laughing, curious lover’s eyes he sees | |
| The sycamores, nymph-white, shake out their hair, | |
| Green as the locks of lithe-limbed Nereides. | 25 |
| All things we dream of in the forest there | |
| Are real to him, for whom a flower is a prayer. | |
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