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.