BY MRS. PAUL AKERS.

THE poplar drops beside the way
Its tasselled plumes of silver gray;
The chestnut pouts its great brown buds, impa-
tient for the laggard May.

The honeysuckles lace the wall;
The hyacinths grow fair and tall;
And mellow sun, and pleasant wind, and odorous
bees are over all.

Down-looking in this snow-white but,
How distant seems the war’s red flood!
How far remote the streaming wounds, the sicken-
ing scent of human blood!

Nor Nature does not recognize
This strife that rends the earth and skies;
No war-dreams vex the winter sleep of clover-heads
and daisy eyes.

She holds her even way the same,
Though navies sink or cities flame;
A snow-drop is a snow-drop still, despite the na-
tion’s joy or shame.

When blood her grassy altar wets,
She sends the pitying violets
To heal the outrage with their bloom, and cover it
with soft regrets.

O crocuses, with rain-wet eyes,
O tender-lipped anemones,
What do you know of agony, and death, and blood-
won victories!

No shudder breaks your sunshine trance,
Though near you rolls, with slow advance,
Clouding your shining leaves with dust, the an-
guish-laden ambulance.

Yonder a white encampment hums;
The clash of martial music comes;
And now your startled stems are all a tremble with
the jar of drums.

Whether it lessen or increase,
Or whether trumpets shout or cease,
Still deep within your tranquil hearts the happy
bees are humming, “Peace!”

O flowers, the soul that faints or grieves,
New comfort from your lips receives;
Sweet confidence and patient faith are hidden in
your healing leaves.

Help us to trust, still on and on,
That this dark night will soon be gone,
And that these battle-stains are but the blood-red
trouble of the dawn.

Dawn of a broader, whiter day
Than ever blessed us with its ray–
A dawn beneath whose purer light all guilt and
wrong shall fade away.

Then shall our nation break its bands,
And silencing the envious lands,
Stand in the searching light unshamed, with spot-
less robe, and clean, white hands.

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