Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves Are lifted by the grass-and so I know That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard The dropping of the velvet foot of Spring. Take of my violets! I found them where The liquid South stole o'er them, on a bank That leaned to running water. There's to me A daintiness about these early flowers That touches me like poetry. They blow The common herbs of pasture, and breathe out Of April and hunt violets; when the rain It may be deem'd too idle, but the young Ye spirits of habitual unrest, And read it when the " fever of the world" Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life Hath yet one spring unpoisoned, it will be Like a beguiling music to its flow, And you will no more wonder that I love To hunt for violets in the April time. THE BELFRY PIGEON. "Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow Of people, and my heart of one sad thought." SHELLEY. On the cross beam under the Old South bell The nest of a pigeon is builded well. In summer and winter that bird is there, I love to see him track the street, 'Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note, And the trembling throb in its mottled throat; And the gentle curve of its lowly crest; Whatever is rung on that noisy bell- The dove in the belfry must hear it well. When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon When the sexton cheerly rings for noon When the clock strikes clear at morning light When the child is waked with "nine at night When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air, He broods on his folded feet unstirred, Or rising half in his rounded nest, He takes the time to smooth his breast, Then drops again with filmed eyes, Sweet bird! I would that I could be I tread, like thee, the crowded street; Thou canst dismiss the world and soar, Canst smooth thy feathers on thy breast, And drop, forgetful, to thy nest. I would that in such wings of gold I could my weary heart upfold; I would I could look down unmoved, (Unloving as I am unloved,) And while the world throngs on beneath, |