The clustered clouds of snowy apple-blooms,
Scarce shivered by a breeze,
With odor faint, like flowers in feverish rooms,
Fall, flake by flake, in peace.
'Tis labor's ebb; a hush of gentle joy,
For man, and beast, and bird;
The quavering songster ceases its employ;
The aspen is not stirred.
But Nature hath no pause; she toileth still;
Above the last-year leaves
Thrusts the lithe germ, and o'er the terraced hill
A fresher carpet weaves.
From many veins she sends her gathered streams
To the huge-billowed main,
Then through the air, impalpable as dreams,
She calls them back again.
She shakes the dew from her ambrosial locks,
She pours adown the steep
The thundering waters; in her palm, she rocks
The flower-throned bee to sleep.
Smile in the tempest, faint and fragile man,
And tremble in the calm!
God plainest shows what great. Jehovah can,
In these fair days of balm.
[Footnote 94: A native of Connecticut, but has lived for many years in the West, and latterly in Minnesota.]
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=Elijah E. Edwards,[95] 1831-.=