THE GARDEN.

When the light flourish of the blue-bird sounds,

And the south wind comes blandly; when the sky

Is soft in delicate blue, with melting pearl

Spotting its bosom, all proclaiming Spring,

Oh with what joy the garden spot we greet,

Wakening from wintry slumbers. As we tread

The branching walks, within its hollow’d nook

We see the violet by some lingering flake

Of melting snow, its sweet eye lifting up,

As welcoming our presence; o’er our heads

The fruit-tree buds are swelling, and we hail

Our grateful task of molding into form

The waste around us. The quick delving spade

Upturns the fresh and odorous earth; the rake

Smooths the plump bed, and in their furrow’d graves

We drop the seed. The robin stops his work

Upon the apple-bough, and flutters down

Stealing, with oft check’d and uplifted foot

And watchful gaze bent quickly either side,

Toward the fall’n wealth of food around the mouth

Of the light paper pouch upon the earth.

But, fearful of our motions, off he flies,

And stoops upon the grub the spade has thrown

Loose from its den beside the wounded root.

Days pass along. The pattering shower falls down

And then the warming sunshine. Tiny clifts

Tell that the seed has turn’d itself, and now

Is pushing up its stem. The verdant pea

Looks out; the twin-leaf’d scallop’d radish shows

Sprinkles of green. The sturdy bean displays

Its jaws distended wide and slightly tongued.

The downy cucumber is seen; the corn

Upshoots its close-wrapp’d spike, and on its mound

The young potato sets its tawny ear.

Meanwhile the fruit-trees gloriously have broke

Into a flush of beauty, and the grape,

Casting aside in peels its shrivel’d skin,

Shows its soft furzy leaf of delicate pink,

And the thick midge-like blossoms round diffuse

A strong, delicious fragrance. Soon along

The trellis stretch the tendrils, sharply prong’d,

Clinging tenacious with their winding rings,

And sending on the stem. A sheet of bloom

Then decks the garden, till the summer glows,

Forming the perfect fruit. In showery nights

The fire-fly glares with its pendent lamp

Of greenish gold. Each dark nook has a voice,

While perfume floats on every wave of air.

The corn lifts up its bandrols long and slim;

The cucumber has overflow’d its spot

With massy verdure, while the yellow squash

Looks like a trumpet 'mid its giant leaves;

And as we reap the rich fruits of our care,

We bless the God who rains his gifts on us—

Making the earth its treasures rich to yield

With slight and fitful toil. Our hearts should be

Ever bent harps, to send unceasing hymns

Of thankful praise to One who fills all space,

And yet looks down with smiles on lowly man.

Alfred Street.