JUNE AT WOODRUFF.

Out at Woodruff Place — afar

From the city's glare and jar,

With the leafy trees, instead

Of the awnings, overhead;

With the shadows cool and sweet,

For the fever of the street;

With the silence, like a prayer,

Breathing round us everywhere.

Gracious anchorage, at last,

From the billows of the vast

Tide of life that comes and goes,

Whence and where nobody knows —

Moving, like a skeptic's thought,

Out of nowhere into naught.

Touch and tame us with thy grace,

Placid calm of Woodruff Place!

Weave a wreath of beechen leaves

For the brow that throbs and grieves

O'er the ledger, bloody-lined,

‘ Neath the sun-struck window-blind!

Send the breath of woodland bloom

Through the sick man's prison room,

Till his old farm-home shall swim

Sweet in mind to hearten him!

Out at Woodruff Place the Muse

Dips her sandal in the dews,

Sacredly as night and dawn

Baptize lilied grove and lawn:

Woody path, or paven way —

She doth haunt them night and day,—

Sun or moonlight through the trees,

To her eyes, are melodies.

Swinging lanterns, twinkling clear

Through night-scenes, are songs to her —

Tinted lilts and choiring hues,

Blent with children's glad halloos;

Then belated lays that fade

Into midnight's serenade —

Vine-like words and zithern-strings

Twined through ali her slumberings.

Blesséd be each hearthstone set

Neighboring the violet!

Blessed every rooftree prayed

Over by the beech's shadel

Blessed doorway, opening where

We may look on Nature — there

Hand to hand and face to face —

Storied realm, or Woodruff Place.