Hold all the summer skies.

But lo! the world again is mad with flowers,
The long white silence spake, small bird by bird,
Blade after blade, amid the song of showers,
The grass stole back once more, and there was heard
The ancient music of the vernal spheres,
Half laughter and half tears.

Ah! love, and now too swiftly, like some groom,
Raining hot kisses on his bride's young mouth,
The mad young year, delirious with the South,
Squanders his fairy treasure, bloom on bloom;
Too soon the wild rose hastens to be sweet,
Too swift, O June, thy feet.

Tarry a little, summer, crowd not so
All glory and gladness in so brief a day,
Teach all thy dancing flowers a step more slow,
And bid thy wild musicians softlier play,
O hast thou thought, that like a madman spends,
The longest summer ends.


GREEN SILENCE

Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves,
And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers,
On whose still breast the water-lily heaves,
For all her speech the whisper of the showers.