AMONG THE LAURELS.
"The sunset's gorgeous dyes
Paled slowly from the skies,
And the clear heaven was waiting for the stars,
As side by side we strayed
Adown a sylvan glade,
And found our pathway crossed by rustic bars.
Beyond the barrier lay
A green and tempting way,
Arched with fair laurel-trees, a-bloom and tall,—
Their cups of tender snow
Touched with a rosy glow,
And warm sweet shadows trembling over all.
The chestnuts sung and sighed,
The solemn oaks replied,
And distant pine-trees crooned in slumberous tones;
While music low and clear
Gushed from the darkness near,
Where a shy brook went tinkling over stones.
Soft mosses, damp and sweet,
Allured our waiting feet,
And brambles veiled their thorns with treacherous bloom;
While tiny flecks of flowers,
Which own no name of ours,
Added their mite of beauty and perfume.
And hark! a hidden bird—
To sudden utterance stirred,
As by a gushing love too great to bear
With voiceless silence long—
Burst into passionate song,
Filling with his sweet trouble all the air.
Then one, whose eager soul
Could brook no slight control,
Said, "Let us thread this pleasant path, dear friend,—
If thus the way can be
So beautiful to see,
How much more beautiful must be the end!
"Follow! this solitude
May shrine the haunted wood,
Storied so sweetly in romance and rhyme,—
Secure from human ill,
And rarely peopled still
By Fauns and Dryads of the olden time.
"A spot of hallowed ground
By mortal yet unfound,
Sacred to nymph and sylvan deity,—
Where foiled Apollo glides,
And bashful Daphne hides
Safe in the shelter of her laurel-tree!"