All things appeared to share my saddened mood,
Each flower drooped, the sun was hid from view,
The very birds in silence seemed to brood.
Then, as I day-dreamed with my eyes half closed,
Sudden the birds began to sing again,
The flow'rs, uplifting heads, no longer dozed.
Thinking the sun had come once more for me
And for all nature, to effect such change,
I turned and lo! saw not the sun but thee.
Livingston L. Biddle
A SONG OF FAIRIES
Oh, the beauty of the world is in this garden,
I hear it stir on every hand.
See how the flowers keep still because of it!
hear how it trembles in the blackbird's song!
There is a secret in it, a blessed mystery.
I fain would weep to feel it near me, my eyes
grow dim before these unseen wings.
And the secret is in other places, it is in songs
and music and all lovers' hearts.
Hush now, and walk on tiptoe, for these are fairy things.
Elizabeth Kirby
A SONG TO BELINDA
Belinda in her dimity,
Whereon are wrought pink roses,
Trips through the boxwood paths to me,
A-down the garden-closes,
As though a hundred roses came,
('Twas so I thought) to meet me,
As though one rosebud said my name
And bent its head to greet me.
Belinda, in your rose-wrought dress
You seemed the garden's growing;
The tilt and toss o' you, no less
Than wind-swayed posy blowing.
'Twas so I watched in sweet dismay,
Lest in that happy hour,
Sudden you'd stop and thrill and sway
And turn into a flower.