Arbutus.

O, beautiful buds with flushing face,

             Waxy and pink, and tinged with white;

Robust with the springtime’s airy grace,

             Give us your fragrance –your pure delight.

Give us a bunch of your precious sweets

             We’ll revel like bees in luxury’s hours;

Can anything growing beneath the feet,

             Touch our hearts as these trailing flowers?

Under a blanket of pure white snow,

             In sylvan nook where the sunbeams play,

The winds, the streamlet with its flow,

             Sing you to sleep with a roundelay.

The oak held out its protecting arms,

             The dark pine bowed its stately head.

The soft wind lull’d with slum‘brous’ charms

             All winter long in your mossy bed.

When May awakes in her rosy balm,

             Our chained impatience waits the hour–

Witching, gracious in summer calm,

             You come to greet us–you baby flower.

Where is another such darling flower,

             In woody dells, or in garden grown?

We crown thee queen of the woodland bower–

             And claim thee loves as our very own.

                          Mary A. Stranger.