Blue Berries
Reading edition
From elfland’s glades and coverts green Peering through bars of sun and shade Are friendly little eyes, I ween, That glow like sapphires set in jade, And shyly veil their azure spheres In summer’s filmiest atmospheres. There banqueting, we half recline And sip the perfume redolent With sweet fern, aromatic pine, And bayberries’ seductive scent, An incense rare as smoking spice That censers raise to Paradise. The stillness brooding like a pall O’er thickets and entangled trees Is stabbed by the shrill blackbird’s call, And rippled by the wandering breeze That trails a buzzing dragon fly Where bumble bees hum drowsily. Athwart the slant rays of the sun Far off there glides a cloudland sail To faery shores. Our task is done - Our treasure won - a brimming pail. And no blithe argonaut e’er bore From legend’s quest a richer store!