Elizabeth Akces Allew DROUGHT. The sun uprises, large and red, The famished fountains and brooks are dry; All things languish and fade and pine; Rain-clouds promise, then burn away; Sadly adown the orchard lines The apples shrivel and shrink and fall; i The peaches perish before their prime, Stand the ranks of the curling corn. No longer the cool and gurgling songs The ringing rasp of the locust comes Piercing the sense like a wedge of sound; The wasp from his nest in the gable hums, And the cricket shrills from the ground. The hard dry grasshopper, snugly hid, Chime with the rattle of sharded wings; Open-billed, with his wings a-droop, The wren sits silent, and seeks no more Or the children's crumbs by the open door; The paths of the garden are thick with dust; And the rows of flower-beds down the walks Are baked to an ashy crust. Parched to blackness the roses die, Robbed of sweetness and form and hue; Vainly the languid butterfly Seeks, as of old, their garnered dew; In his cool nest underground! The fading foliage of waiting woods, The fields all barren and bare and brown, The parching roofs of the thirsty town, THE VOICES OF SPRING. SESTINA. "When sparrows build, and leaves break forth, The old sorrow wakes and cries." Why is it that the voices of the spring, The blue-bird's note, the red-breast's mellow call, The sweet, sweet carols which the sparrows sing, The peeping of the frogs at evening's fall,These vague regrets and home-sick longings bring To hearts which listen for and love them all? All souls rejoice when winter goes; and all To hear the woods responding to the call Which, rough and blustering, the March winds sing,To mark the shower's blossom-waking fall, And the slight changes which the slow days bring. And yet, the first soft days are sure to bring A tender sadness, with their joy, to all; Or smile, when tears well up, and fain would fall? Even the lark's voice has a mournful fall; His lovely golden breast, that seems to bring The sunshine with it, and the warmth, and all That makes and glorifies the gracious spring, Is burdened with that long, despairing call For one he seeks in vain-how can he sing? We think of strains which hope was wont to sing Never does summer-time or autumn call The same soft sadness back; the birds may sing, Flowers fade, and ripe October's foliage fall, Yet not the same strange melancholy bring. It is the saddest season of them all,— The weeping, haunted, unforgetful spring! Ah, lovely spring! though mating blue-birds call, AMONG THE LAURELS. The sunset's gorgeous dyes Paled slowly from the skies, And the clear heaven was waiting for the stars, And found our pathway crossed by rustic bars. Beyond the barrier lay A green and tempting way, Arched with fair laurel trees, abloom and tall, And warm, sweet shadows trembling over all. The chestnuts sung and sighed, The solemn oaks replied, And distant pine-trees crooned in cradling tones; Gushed from the darkness near, Where a shy brook went tinkling over stones. Soft mosses, damp and sweet, Allured our waiting feet, And brambles veiled their thorns with treacherous bloom; While tiny flecks of flowers, Which owned no name of ours, Added their mite of beauty and perfume. |