When The Poet Came.

The ferny places gleam at morn,     The dew drips off the leaves of corn;     Along the brook a mist of white     Fades as a kiss on lips of light;     For, lo! the poet with his pipe     Finds all these melodies are ripe!     Far up within the cadenced June     Floats, silver-winged, a living tune     That winds within the morning's chime     And sets the earth and sky to rhyme;     For, lo! the poet, absent long,     Breathes the first raptures of his song!     Across the clover-blossoms, wet,     With dainty clumps of violet,     And wild red roses in her hair,     There comes a little maiden fair.     I cannot more of June rehearse--     She is the ending of my verse.     Ah, nay! For through perpetual days     Of summer gold and filmy haze,     When Autumn dies in Winter's sleet,     I yet will see those dew-washed feet,     And o'er the tracts of Life and Time     They make the cadence for my rhyme.