Childhood songs / by Lucy Larcom [electronic text]

GOWNS OF GOSSAMER.

THEY're hastening up across the fields; I see them on their way! They will not wait for cloudless skies, nor even a pleasant day; For Mother Earth will weave and spread a carpet for their feet; Already voices in the air announce their coming sweet.

One sturdy little violet peeped out alone, in March, While cobwebs of the snow yet hung about the sky's gray arch; But merry winds to sweep them down in earnest had begun: The violet, though she shook with cold, stayed on to watch the fun.

And now the other violets are crowding up to see What welcome in this blustering world may chance for them to be: They lift themselves on slender stems in every shaded place,— Heads over heads, all turned one way, wonder in every face.

There shiver, in rose-tinted white, the pale anemones; There pink, perfumed arbutus trails from underneath bare trees; Hepatica shows opal gleams beneath her silk-lined cloak, Then slips it off, and hides amid the gnarled roots of the oak.

They like the clear, cool weather well, when they are fairly out, And they are happy as the flowers of sunnier climes, no doubt.

When little star-shaped innocence makes every field snow-white With her four-cornered neckerchiefs, there is no lovelier sight.

And when the wild geranium comes, in gauzy purple sheen, Forerunner of the woodland rose, June's darling, Summer's Queen With small herb-robert like a page close following her feet, Jack-in-the-pulpit will stand up in his green-curtained seat:

Marsh-marigold and adder's-tongue will wade the brook across, Where cornel-flowers are grouped, in crowds, on strips of turf and moss; And wood-stars white, from lucent green will glimmer and unfold, And scarlet columbines will lift their trumpets, mouthed with gold.

Then will the birds sing anthems; for the earth and sky and air Will seem a great cathedral, filled with beings dear and fair; And long processions, from the time that bluebird-notes begin Till gentians fade, through forest-aisles will still move out and in.

Unnumbered multitudes of flowers it were in vain to name, Along the roads and in the woods will old acquaintance claim; And scarcely shall we know which one for beauty we prefer Of all the wayside fairies clad in gowns of gossamer.