Homeward through flowers; she speaks:

Behold the offerings of the common hills!

Whose lowly names have made them three times dear:

The evening-primrose and dim multitudes

Of violets that sky the mossy dells

With heaven's ambrosial blue; dew-dripping plumes

Of mauve lobelias; and the red-stained cups

Of blackberry-lilies all along the creek,

Where, lulled, the freckled silence sleeps, and vague

The water flows; where, at high noon, the cows

Wade knee-deep, and the heat is honied with

The drone of drowsy bees. The fleur-de-lis,

Blue, streaked with crystal like a summer day,

The monkey-flower and the touch-me-not,

All frailly scented and familiar as

Fair baby faces and soft infant eyes.

Simple suggestions of a life most fair!

You whisper me of love and untaught faith,

Whose habitation is within the soul,

Not of the Earth, yet for the Earth indeed....

What is it halcyons my heart? makes calm,

With calmness not of wisdom, all my soul

To-night?— Is't love? or faith? or both?—

The lore of all the world is less than these

Simple suggestions of a life most fair,

And love most sweet; that I have learned to know!