Muna Lee

From “Songs of Many Moods”

THERE is no flower that would hide from him

The mystic secret that the woodland knows—

Not johnny-jump-ups in the shadows dim,

Not foxglove nor the delicate pale rose,

Nor any smallest forest thing that grows.

For he is lover and interpreter

To all shy life that blooms or sings, or goes

Fur-clad or wingèd. He knows every burr,

That clings to Summer’s hem, and each brown insect’s whir.

He loves the screech-owl and the screaming jay;

His heart is tender to the fleet-winged swallow,

To sea-gulls and to sparrows at their play,

And to the hook-beaked hawks that swiftly follow.

The marsh-hen, building by the sedgy shallow,

Is not more gentle with her brood than he,

Who finds her nest beside the tall rose-mallow,

And lifts aside the fern, that he may see

Her little fledglings there, and woo them cunningly.

For him the forest is shot through with song—

Wren-song and thrush-song thrilling from the trees,

Bee-song shut close in mountain-pink; and strong

Sweet arrowy notes from bugles of the breeze.

With a laughing, curious lover’s eyes he sees

The sycamores, nymph-white, shake out their hair,

Green as the locks of lithe-limbed Nereides.

All things we dream of in the forest there

Are real to him, for whom a flower is a prayer.