And the humming-bird, that hung
Like a jewel up among

The tilted honeysuckle-horns,
They mesmerized, and swung

In the palpitating air,

Drowsed with odors strange and rare,

And, with whispered laughter, slipped away And left him hanging there.

By the brook with mossy brink,

Where the cattle came to drink,

They trilled, and piped, and whistled
With the thrush and bobolink,

Till the kine, in listless pause,
Switched their tails in mute applause,
With lifted head and dreamy eyes,
And bubble-dripping jaws.

And where the melons grew,
Streaked with yellow, green, and blue,
These jolly sprites went wandering
Through spangled paths of dew.
And the melons, here and there,
They made love to, everywhere,

Turning their pink souls to crimson
With caresses fond and fair.

Over orchard walls they went,

Where the fruited boughs were bent

Till they brushed the sward beneath them Where the shine and shadow blent;

And the great green pear they shook

Till the sallow hue forsook

Its features, and the gleam of gold Laughed out in every look.

And they stroked the downy cheek
Of the peach, and smoothed it sleek,
And flushed it into splendor;
And, with many an elfish freak,

Gave the russet's rust a wipe—
Prankt the rambo with a stripe,

And the winesap blushed its reddest
As they spanked the pippins ripe.

And the golden-banded bees,
Droning o'er the flowery leas,

They bridled, reined, and rode away
Across the fragrant breeze,

Till in hollow oak and elm

They had groomed and stabled them
In waxen stalls that oozed with dews
Of rose and lily stem.

Where the dusty highway leads,
High above the wayside weeds,
They sowed the air with butterflies
Like blooming flower-seeds,

Till the dull grasshopper sprung
Half a man's height up, and hung

Tranced in the heat, with whirring wings,

And sung, and sung, and sung!

And they heard the killdee's call,

And afar, the waterfall,

But the rustle of a falling leaf
They heard above it all;
And the trailing willow crept
Deeper in the tide that swept

The leafy shallop to the shore,

And wept, and wept, and wept!

And the fairy vessel veered

From its moorings-tacked and steered

For the center of the current

Sailed away and disappeared:

And the burthen that it bore

From the long-enchanted shore

"Alas! the South Wind and the Sun!"

I murmur evermore.

7.

For the South Wind and the Sun,
Each so loves the other one,

For all his jolly folly,

And frivolity and fun,

That our love for them they weigh

As their fickle fancies may,

And when at last we love them most,

They laugh and sail away.

James Whitcomb Riley.

SONG OF THE BROOK.

I come from haunts of coot and hern:
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges,

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

THE BALLAD OF THE BROOK.

Oh, it was a dainty maid that went a-maying in the morn, A dainty, dainty maiden of degree;

The ways she took were merry, and the ways she missed forlorn,

And the laughing water tinkled to the sea.

The little leaves above her loved the dainty, dainty maid,

The little winds they kissed her, every one;

At the nearing of her little feet the flowers were not afraid, And the water lay a-wimpling in the sun.

Oh, the dainty, dainty maid to the borders of the brook,
Lingered down as lightly as the breeze;

And the shy water-spiders quit their scurrying to look,
And the happy water whispered to the trees.

She was fain to cross the brook, was the dainty, dainty maid,
But first she lifted up her elfin eyes

To see if there were cavalier or clown anear to aid,
And the water-bubbles blinked in surprise.

The brook bared its pebbles to persuade her dainty feet,
But the dainty, dainty maid was not content;

She had spied a simple country lad (for dainty maid unmeet),
And the shy water twinkled as it went.

As the simple lad drew nigh, then this dainty, dainty maid, (Oh, maidens, well you know how it was done!

Stood a-gazing at her feet, until he saw she was afraid
Of the water there a-wimpling in the sun.

Now that simple lad had in him all the making of a man,
And he stammered, "I had better lift you over.
Said the dainty, dainty maid, "Do you really think you can ?"
And the water hid its laughter in the clover.

So he carried her across, with his honest eyes cast down,
And his foolish heart a-quaking with delight,