Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/94

Yon old forsaken nests
    Returning spring shall cheer,
And thence the unfledged robin breathe
    His greeting wild and clear;
And from yon clustering vine,
    That wreathes the casement round,
The humming-birds' unresting wing
    Send forth a whirring sound;

And where alternate springs
    The lilach's purple spire
Fast by its snowy sister's side;
    Or where, with wing of fire,
The kingly oriole glancing went
    Amid the foliage rare,
Shall many a group of children tread,
    But mine will not be there.

Fain would I know what forms
    The mastery here shall keep,
What mother in yon nursery fair
    Rock her young babes to sleep:
Yet blessings on the hallow'd spot,
    Though here no more I stray,
And blessings on the stranger-babes
    Who in those halls shall play.

Heaven bless you, too, my plants,
    And every parent bird
That here, among the woven boughs,
    Above its young hath stirr'd.