In spring, when the green gits back in the trees,
    And the sun comes out and stays,
  And yer boots pulls on with a good tight squeeze,
    And you think of yer barefoot days;
  When you ort to work and you want to not,
    And you and yer wife agrees
  It’s time to spade up the garden lot,
    When the green gits back in the trees—­
      Well! work is the least o’ my idees
      When the green, you know, gits back in the trees!

  When the green gits back in the trees, and bees
    Is a-buzzin’ aroun’ agin,
  In that kind of a lazy go-as-you-please
    Old gait they bum roun’ in;
  When the groun’s all bald where the hay-rick stood,
    And the crick ’s riz, and the breeze
  Coaxes the bloom in the old dogwood,
    And the green gits back in the trees,—­
      I like, as I say, in sich scenes as these,
      The time when the green gits back in the trees!

  When the whole tail-feathers o’ wintertime
    Is all pulled out and gone! 
  And the sap it thaws and begins to climb,
    And the sweat it starts out on
  A feller’s forred, a-gittin’ down
    At the old spring on his knees—­
  I kind o’ like jes’ a-loaferin’ roun’
    When the green gits back in the trees—­
      Jes’ a-potterin’ roun’ as I—­durn—­please—­
      When the green, you know, gits back in the trees!

AT BROAD RIPPLE.

Ah, Luxury!  Beyond the heat And dust of town, with dangling feet, Astride the rock below the dam, In the cool shadows where the calm Rests on the stream again, and all Is silent save the waterfall,—­ bait my hook and cast my line, And feel the best of life is mine.

No high ambition may I claim—­ angle not for lordly game Of trout, or bass, or wary bream—­ black perch reaches the extreme Of my desires; and “goggle-eyes” Are not a thing that I despise; A sunfish, or a “chub,” or “cat”—­ A “silver-side”—­yea, even that!

  In eloquent tranquility
  The waters lisp and talk to me. 
  Sometimes, far out, the surface breaks,
  As some proud bass an instant shakes
  His glittering armor in the sun,
  And romping ripples, one by one,
  Come dallying across the space
  Where undulates my smiling face.

  The river’s story flowing by,
  Forever sweet to ear and eye,
  Forever tenderly begun—­
  Forever new and never done. 
  Thus lulled and sheltered in a shade
  Where never feverish cares invade,
  I bait my hook and cast my line,
  And feel the best of life is mine.

WHEN OLD JACK DIED.

I.