Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/327

Yet, O my neighbors, be not too proud,
Though on every tongue your praise is loud.
Our mother Nature is kind to me,
And I am beloved by bird and bee,
And never a child that passes by
But turns upon me a grateful eye.

Over my head the skies are blue;
I have my share of the rain and dew;
I bask like you in the summer sun
When the long bright days pass, one by one,
And calm as yours is my sweet repose
Wrapped in the warmth of the winter Snows.

For little our loving mother cares
Which the corn or the daisy bears,
Which is rich with the ripening wheat,
Which with the violet's breath is sweet,
Which is red with the clover bloom,
Or which for the wild sweet-fern makes room.

Useless under the summer sky
Year after year men say I lie.
Little they know what strength of mine
I give to the trailing blackberry vine;
Little they know how the wild grape grows,
Or how my life-blood flushes the rose.

Little they think of the cups I fill
For the mosses creeping under the hill;
Little they think of the feast I spread
For the wild wee creatures that must be fed:
Squirrel and butterfly, bird and bee,
And the creeping things that no eye may see.