Think of the roots getting ready to sprout,
Reaching their slender brown fingers about,
Under the ice and the leaves and the snow,
    Waiting to grow!

No seed is so small, or hidden so well,
That God cannot find it; and soon he will tell
His sun where to shine, and His rain where to go,
    Making it grow!
                               Frank French.

THE DANDELIONS

Upon a showery night and still,
  Without a sound of warning,
A trooper band surprised the hill,
  And held it in the morning.

We were not waked by bugle notes
  No cheer our dreams invaded,
And yet, at dawn, their yellow coats
  On the green slopes paraded.

We careless folk the deed forgot;
  Till one day, idly walking,
We marked upon the self-same spot
  A crowd of veterans, talking. 
They shook their trembling heads and gray,
  With pride and noiseless laughter,
When, well-a-day! they blew away,
  And ne’er were heard of after.
                       Helen Gray Cone.

A FAIRY TALE

There stands by the wood-path shaded
  A meek little beggar maid;
Close under her mantle faded
  She is hidden like one afraid.

Yet if you but lifted lightly
  That mantle of russet brown,
She would spring up slender and sightly,
  In a smoke-blue silken gown.

For she is a princess, fated,
  Disguised in the wood to dwell,
And all her life long has awaited
  The touch that should break the spell;

And the Oak, that has cast around her
  His root like a wrinkled arm,
Is the wild old wizard that bound her
  Fast with his cruel charm.

Is the princess worth your knowing? 
  Then haste, for the spring is brief,
And find the Hepatica growing,
  Hid under a last year’s leaf!
                         Helen Gray Cone.

A FABLE

The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter “Little Prig”;
Bun replied,
“You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere. 
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place. 
If I’m not so large as you
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I’ll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.”
                     Ralph Waldo Emerson.

THE NIGHT WIND