APRIL

By Lloyd Mifflin

(From "The Fields of Dawn.")

MONG the maple-buds we hear the tones

Of April's earliest bees, although the days

Seemed ruled by Mars. The veil of gathering haze

Spread round the silent hills
in bluest zones.

Deep in the pines the breezes stirred the cones,
As on we strolled within the wooded ways,
There where the brook, transilient, softly plays
With muffled plectrum on her harp of stones;
Onward we pushed amid the yielding green
And light rebounding of the cedar boughs,
Until we heard the forest lanes along,
Above the lingering drift of latest snows-
The Thrush outpour, from coverts still unseen,
His rare ebulliency of liquid song!

SUMMER

By Lloyd Mifflin

(From "The Fields of Dawn")

OW well we loved, in Summer solitude

To stroll on lonely ridges far

away,

Where beeches, with their boles of Quaker gray,

Murmured at times a sylvan interlude !

We heard each songster warble near her brood, And from the lowland where the mowers lay Came now and then faint fragrance from the hay, That touched the heart to reminiscent mood. We peered down wooded steeps, and saw the sun Shining in front, tip all the grape-vines wild, And edge with light the bowlders' lichened groups;

While, deep within the gorge, the tinkling run Coiled through the hollows with its silvered loops

Down to the waiting River, thousand-isled.

AUTUMN

By Lloyd Mifflin

(From "The Fields of Dawn")

HE nearest woodlands wore a misty veil ;

From phantom trees we saw the last leaf float;

The hills though near us seemed to lie remote,

Wrapped in a balmy vapor,
golden- pale.

From somewhere hidden in the dreamy dale-
Latona's sorrow yet within her note

Reft of her comrades, o'er the stubbled oat
We heard the calling of the lonely quail.
In the bare corn-field stalked the silent crow;
Too faint the breeze to make the grasses sigh,
And not one carol came from out the sky;
But o'er the golden gravelly levels low,
The brook, loquacious, still went lilting by
As liquidly as Lara, long ago.

GOLDEN CROWN SPARROW OF

ALASKA

By John Burroughs

H, minstrel of these borean hills, Where twilight hours are long,

I would my boyhood's fragrant days

Had known thy plaintive

song;

gray,

Had known thy vest of ashen
Thy coat of drab and brown,
The bands of jet upon thy head
That clasp thy golden crown.

We heard thee in the cold White Pass,
Where cloud and mountain meet,
Again where Muir's great glacier shone
Far spread beneath our feet.

I bask me now on emerald heights.
To catch thy faintest strain,

But cannot tell if in thy lay

Be more of joy or pain.

Far off behold the snow-white peaks
Athwart the sea's blue-shade;

Anear there rise green Kadiak hills,
Wherein thy nest is made.

I hear the wild bee's mellow chord,
In airs that swim above;
The lesser hermit tunes his flute
To solitude and love.

But thou, sweet singer of the wild,
I give more heed to thee;
Thy wistful note of fond regret
Strikes deeper chords in me.

Farewell, dear bird! I turn my face
To other skies than thine
A thousand leagues of land and sea
Between thy home and mine.

TO THE LAPLAND LONGSPUR By John Burroughs

I

H, thou northland bobolink,
Looking over Summer's brink
Up to Winter, worn and dim,
Peering down from mountain
rim,

Something takes me in thy note,
Quivering wing, and bubbling
throat;

Something moves me in thy ways -
Bird, rejoicing in thy days,
In thy upward-hovering flight.
In thy suit of black and white,