Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

Within the darksome ground,

I should love to hear the April rain

So gently falling round;

Or any tiny flower were I,

By Nature swaddled up,

How pleasantly the April shower

Would bathe my hidden cup!

The small brown seed, that rattled down

On the cold autumnal earth,

Is bursting from its cerements forth,