The Painted Cup.

The fresh savannas of the Sangamon     Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass     Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts     Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire;     The wanderers of the prairie know them well,     And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup.     Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not     That these bright chalices were tinted thus     To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet     On moonlight evenings in the hazel bowers,     And dance till they are thirsty. Call not up,     Amid this fresh and virgin solitude,     The faded fancies of an elder world;     But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths     Of June, and glistening flies, and humming-birds,     To drink from, when on all these boundless lawns     The morning sun looks hot. Or let the wind     O'erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pour     A sudden shower upon the strawberry plant,     To swell the reddening fruit that even now     Breathes a slight fragrance from the sunny slope.     But thou art of a gayer fancy. Well,     Let then the gentle Manitou of flowers,     Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves,     Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone,     Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown     And ruddy with the sunshine; let him come     On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake,     And part with little hands the spiky grass;     And touching, with his cherry lips, the edge     Of these bright beakers, drain the gathered dew.