Once git a smell o’ musk into a draw
  An’ it clings hold like precerdents in law: 
  Your gran’ma’am put it there,—­when, goodness knows,—­
  To jes’ this-worldify her Sunday-clo’es;
  But the old chist wun’t sarve her gran’son’s wife,
  (For, ’thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?)
  An’ so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread
  O’ the spare-chamber, slinks into the shed,
  Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides
  To holdin’ seeds an’ fifty things besides;
  But better days stick fast in heart an’ husk,
  An’ all you keep in’t gits a scent o’ musk.

  Jes’ so with poets:  wut they’ve airly read
  Gits kind o’ worked into their heart an’ head,
  So’s ’t they can’t seem to write but jest on sheers
  With furrin countries or played-out ideers,
  Nor hev a feelin’, ef it doosn’t smack
  O’ wut some critter chose to feel ’way back: 
  This makes ’em talk o’ daisies, larks, an’ things,
  Ez though we ‘d nothin’ here that blows an’ sings,—­

  (Why, I’d give more for one live bobolink
  Than a square mile o’ larks in printer’s ink,)—­
  This makes ’em think our fust o’ May is May,
  Which ’t ain’t, for all the almanicks can say.

  O little city-gals, don’t never go it
  Blind on the word o’ noospaper or poet! 
  They ‘re apt to puff, an’ May-day seldom looks
  Up in the country ez it doos in books;
  They ‘re no more like than hornets’-nests an’ hives,
  Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. 
  I, with my trouses perched on cow-hide boots,
  Tuggin’ my foundered feet out by the roots,
  Hev seen ye come to fling on April’s hearse
  Your muslin nosegays from the milliner’s,
  Puzzlin’ to find dry ground your queen to choose,
  An’ dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: 
  I’ve seen ye an’ felt proud, thet, come wut would,
  Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood. 
  Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o’ winch,
  Ez though ‘t wuz sunthin’ paid for by the inch;
  But yit we du contrive to worry thru,
  Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing’s to du,
  An’ kerry a hollerday, ef we set out,
  Ez stiddily ez though ’t wuz a redoubt.

  I, country-born an’ bred, know where to find
  Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind,
  An’ seem to metch the doubtin’ bluebird’s notes,—­
  Half-vent’rin’ liverworts in furry coats,
  Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl,
  Each on ’em’s cradle to a baby-pearl,—­
  But these are jes’ Spring’s pickets; sure ez sin,
  The rebble frosts ’ll try to drive ’em in;
  For half our May’s so awfully like Mayn’t,
  ’T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint;
  Though I own up I like our back’ard springs
  Thet kind o’ haggle with their greens an’ things,
  An’ when you ’most give up, without more words
  Toss the fields full o’ blossoms, leaves, an’ birds: 
  Thet’s Northun natur’, slow an’ apt to doubt,
  But when it doos git stirred, ther’s no gin-out!