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know where the cro

cus blows?

Under the snows;

Wide eyed and winsome and

daintily fair

As waxen exotic, close-tended

and rare;

Every child knows

Where the first crocus blows.

Do you know why the crocus grows

Under the snows?

To tell that the winter is over and gone,

And soon bird and blossom will gladden the lawn,

And the hedgerows

Where the first crocus blows.

Do you know when the crocus grows

Under the snows?

When little ones sleep in their warm downy beds,

With mother-hands smoothing their dear curly heads; While the storm goes

Where the first crocus blows.

Do you know while the crocus grows

Under the snows,

That One smileth softly and says, "I will send

This promise that all stormy times have an end?" So our Lord knows

Where the first crocus blows.

Reprinted by permission from “ Camp Fire, Memorial Day, and Other
Poems," by Kate Brownlee Sherwood, published and copyrighted

by A. C. McClurg & Company.

THE SNOWDROP.

HE herald of the flowers,

Tsent with its small white flag of truce, to plead

For its beleagured brethren; suppliantly

It prays stern winter to withdraw his troop

Of wind and blustering storms, and, having won
A smile of promise from its pitying foe,
Returns to tell the issue of its errand
To the expectant host.

- Selected.

SPRING.

(AFTER MELEAGER.)

TOW the bright crocus flames, and now

Now The slim narcissus takes the rain,

And, straying o'er the mountain's brow,
The daffodillies bud again.

The thousand blossoms wax and wane
On wold, and heath, and fragrant bough,
But fairer than the flowers art thou,
Than any growth of hill or plain.

Ye gardens, cast your leafy crown,
That my Love's feet may tread it down,
Like lilies on the lilies set;

My Love, whose lips are softer far
Than drowsy poppy petals are,
And sweeter than the violet.

- Andrew Lang.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH A PLOW.

VEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,

WEE

Thou's met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush amang the stoure1
Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem.

1 Stoure, dust.

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,1
Wi' speckled breast,

When upward springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter, biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,

Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,

3

High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield, But thou, beneath the random bield"

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who lang with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven

To misery's brink,

1 Weet, rain, wetness. 2 Glinted, peeped.

3 Wa's, walls.

4 Random bield, casual shelter.

Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sick!

Even thou, who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date:

Stern Ruin's plowshare drives elite
Full on thy bloom.

Till, crushed beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall be thy doom!

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