Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/130

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TO ELLEN

'O pride of thy race!
Sad, in sooth, it were to ours,
If our brief tribe miss thy face,
We poor New England flowers.


'Fairest, choose the fairest members
Of our lithe society;
June's glories and September's
Show our love and piety.


'Thou shalt command us all,—
April's cowslip, summer's clover,
To the gentian in the fall,
Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.


'O come, then, quickly come!
We are budding, we are blowing;
And the wind that we perfume
Sings a tune that 's worth the knowing.'

TO ELLEN

And Ellen, when the graybeard years
Have brought us to life's evening hour,
And all the crowded Past appears
A tiny scene of sun and shower,