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"There, wild geranium,
with its woolly stem
And aromatic breath, perfumed the glade;
And fairy speedwell, like some sapphire gem,
Lighted with purple sparks the hedge-row's shade;
And woodbine, with her tinted calyxes,
And dog-rose, glistening with the dews of morn,
And tangled wreaths of tufted clematis,
Whose blossoms pale the careless eye may scorn,
(As green and light her fairy mantles fiLll
To hide the rough hedge or the crumbling wall,)
But in whose breast the laden wild-bees dive
For the best riches of their teeming hive:
There, sprang the sunny cricket; there, was spread
The fragile silver of the spider's thread,
Stretching from blade to blade of emerald grass,
Unbroken, till some human footstep pass;
There, by the rippling stream that murmured on,
Now seen, now hidden - half in light, half Sun -
The darting dragon-fly, with sudden gleam,
Shot, as it went, a gold and purple beam;
And the fish leaped within the deeper pool,
And the green trees stretched out their branches cool,
Where many a bird hushed in her peopled nest
The unfledged darlings of her feathered breast,
Listening her mate's clear song, in that sweet grove
Where all around breathed happiness and love!
"And while we talked the summer hours flew fast,
As hours may fly, with those whose love is young;
Who fear no future, and who know no past,
Dating existence from the hope that sprung
Up in their hearts with such a sudden light,
That all beyond shows dark and blank as night.
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