Chapter I: LAUGHED in woods down where a brook

Ran off with little leaps,
An answer came from some fern-nook,
And then another made me look
Off in the dark tree-deeps.

I ran to all the nooks to see
If I could find the one
Who heard me first, and answered me--
Each place was still as it could be,
As far as I could run.

Nurse said, "There's no one to be caught.
It's just the echo's glee."
But then I know that it was _not_!
The little wood-elves all forgot,
And laughed out loud with me.

THE SICK ROSE

THIS rose I picked, began to die,
And so, I've brought it back again
To where it used to live. I'll try
To make it as it was--and then,
I'll whisper to it how I care.
Why _can't_ it grow now any more,
A rose with other roses there,
Upon the rosebush by the door?

AFTERNOON

JUST since the night, the wind has won
The last pink bud to open bloom.
The long path whitens in the sun;
All grown folks hunt a darkened room.
Cool sweet of morning time is gone
From all the leaves and grass.
Here in this place the shade falls on,
I wait for butterflies to pass.

THE WILD

I LOVE the gold-brown flutter-bird
You caught for me;
But from its song is gone a note I heard
When it was free.

And when I bring the lace-ferns home
I can not bring
The wood-charm too--the spell of that wee gnome
Which makes birds sing.

The trees you painted with your brush
Are like the real,
But that still harking of the soft leaf-hush
You could not steal.

It is the spirit of the wold--the same
That's part of me,--
The gipsy wild of me without a name,
Unhoused and free.

BUD MUSIC