The Beauty of Nature.

Oh bud and leaf and blossom,
    How beautiful they are!
Than last year's vernal season
    'Tis lovelier by far;
This earth was never so enchanting
    Nor half so bright before -
But so I've rhapsodized, in springtime,
    For forty years or more.

What luxury of color
    On shrub and plant and vine,
From pansies' richest purple
    To pink of eglantine;
From buttercups to "johnny-jump-ups,"
    With deep cerulean eyes,
Responding to their modest surname
    In violet surprise.

Sometimes I think the sunlight
    That gilds the emerald hills,
And makes Aladdin dwellings
    Of dingy domiciles,
Is surplus beauty overflowing
    That Heaven cannot hold -
The topaz glitter, or the jacinth,
    The glare of streets of gold.

In "Cedar Hill," the city
    Of "low green tents" of sod,
I read the solemn record
    Of those gone home to God;
While from their hallowed dust arising
    The fragrant lilies grow
As if their life was all the sweeter
    For those who sleep below.

And so 'tis not in sadness
    I dwell upon the thought,
When I am dead and buried
    That I shall be forgot.
Because the germ of reproduction
    Doth this poor body hold,
Perchance to add to nature's beauty
    A rose above the mold.