The Poems of Emma Lazarus

I. Youth.

Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,

Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills,

Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,

That each dark copse and hollow overfills;

The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills,

Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold,

A murmur and a singing manifold.

The gray, austere old earth renews her youth

With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze.

How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth,

While all is fresh as in the early days!

What simple things be these the soul to raise

To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat,

With nameless pleasure finding life so sweet.

On such a golden morning forth there floats,

Between the soft earth and the softer sky,

In the warm air adust with glistening motes,

The mystic winged and flickering butterfly,

A human soul, that hovers giddily

Among the gardens of earth's paradise,

Nor dreams of fairer fields or loftier skies.