Dear March, come in! How glad I am! I looked for you before. Put down your hat — You must have walked — How out of breath you are! Dear March, how are you? And the rest? Did you leave Nature well? Oh, March, come right upstairs with me, I have so much to tell! […]

A lady red upon the hill Her annual secret keeps; A lady white within the field In placid lily sleeps! The tidy breezes with their brooms Sweep vale, and hill, and tree! Prithee, my pretty housewives! Who may expected be? The neighbors do not yet suspect! The woods exchange a smile — Orchard, and buttercup, […]

A light exists in spring Not present on the year At any other period. When March is scarcely here A color stands abroad On solitary hills That science cannot overtake, But human nature feels. It waits upon the lawn; It shows the furthest tree Upon the furthest slope we know; It almost speaks to me. […]

She slept beneath a tree Remembered but by me. I touched her cradle mute; She recognized the foot, Put on her carmine suit, — And see!

His bill an auger is, His head, a cap and frill. He laboreth at every tree, — A worm his utmost goal.

And satisfied a leaf, And felt, ‘how vast a destiny! How trivial is life!’ The sun went out to work, The day went out to play, But not again that dew was seen By physiognomy. Whether by day abducted, Or emptied by the sun Into the sea, in passing, Eternally unknown.

It’s like the light, — A fashionless delight It’s like the bee, — A dateless melody. It’s like the woods, Private like breeze, Phraseless, yet it stirs The proudest trees. It’s like the morning, — Best when it’s done, — The everlasting clocks Chime noon.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, — One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do If bees are few.

What mystery pervades a well! The water lives so far, Like neighbor from another world Residing in a jar. The grass does not appear afraid; I often wonder he Can stand so close and look so bold At what is dread to me. Related somehow they may be, — The sedge stands next the sea, […]

The spider as an artist Has never been employed Though his surpassing merit Is freely certified By every broom and Bridget Throughout a Christian land. Neglected son of genius, I take thee by the hand.

High from the earth I heard a bird; He trod upon the trees As he esteemed them trifles, And then he spied a breeze, And situated softly Upon a pile of wind Which in a perturbation Nature had left behind. A joyous-going fellow I gathered from his talk, Which both of benediction And badinage partook, […]

A sepal, petal, and a thorn Upon a common summer’s morn, A flash of dew, a bee or two, A breeze A caper in the trees, — And I’m a rose!

Of bronze and blaze The north, to-night! So adequate its forms, So preconcerted with itself, So distant to alarms, — An unconcern so sovereign To universe, or me, It paints my simple spirit With tints of majesty, Till I take vaster attitudes, And strut upon my stem, Disdaining men and oxygen, For arrogance of them. […]

A sloop of amber slips away Upon an ether sea, And wrecks in peace a purple tar, The son of ecstasy.

Drab habitation of whom? Tabernacle or tomb, Or dome of worm, Or porch of gnome, Or some elf’s catacomb?

The cricket sang, And set the sun, And workmen finished, one by one, Their seam the day upon. The low grass loaded with the dew, The twilight stood as strangers do With hat in hand, polite and new, To stay as if, or go. A vastness, as a neighbor, came, — A wisdom without face […]

You’ve seen balloons set, haven’t you? So stately they ascend It is as swans discarded you For duties diamond. Their liquid feet go softly out Upon a sea of blond; They spurn the air as ‘t were too mean For creatures so renowned. Their ribbons just beyond the eye, They struggle some for breath, And […]

Could I but ride indefinite, As doth the meadow-bee, And visit only where I liked, And no man visit me, And flirt all day with buttercups, And marry whom I may, And dwell a little everywhere, Or better, run away With no police to follow, Or chase me if I do, Till I should jump […]

Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, Until we meet a snake; ‘T is then we sigh for houses, And our departure take At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is summer’s treason, And guile is where it goes. br />

Given in marriage unto thee, Oh, thou celestial host! Bride of the Father and the Son, Bride of the Holy Ghost! Other betrothal shall dissolve, Wedlock of will decay; Only the keeper of this seal Conquers mortality.