If they are little, ah God! but the cost,
    Who but thou knowest the all that is lost! 
  If they are few, is the workmanship true? 
    Try them and weigh me, whate’er be my due!

EVENING

  The moon begins her stately ride
    Across the summer sky;
  The happy wavelets lash the shore,—­
    The tide is rising high.

  Beneath some friendly blade of grass
    The lazy beetle cowers;
  The coffers of the air are filled
    With offerings from the flowers.

  And slowly buzzing o’er my head
    A swallow wings her flight;
  I hear the weary plowman sing
    As falls the restful night.

TO PFRIMMER

(Lines on reading “Driftwood.”)

  Driftwood gathered here and there
  Along the beach of time;
  Now and then a chip of truth
  ’Mid boards and boughs of rhyme;
  Driftwood gathered day by day,—­
  The cypress and the oak,—­
  Twigs that in some former time
  From sturdy home trees broke. 
  Did this wood come floating thick
  All along down “Injin Crik?”
  Or did kind tides bring it thee
  From the past’s receding sea
  Down the stream of memory?

TO THE MIAMI

  Kiss me, Miami, thou most constant one! 
    I love thee more for that thou changest not. 
  When Winter comes with frigid blast,
  Or when the blithesome Spring is past
    And Summer’s here with sunshine hot,
  Or in sere Autumn, thou has still the pow’r
  To charm alike, whate’er the hour.

  Kiss me, Miami, with thy dewy lips;
    Throbs fast my heart e’en as thine own breast beats. 
  My soul doth rise as rise thy waves,
  As each on each the dark shore laves
    And breaks in ripples and retreats. 
  There is a poem in thine every phase;
  Thou still has sung through all thy days.

  Tell me, Miami, how it was with thee
    When years ago Tecumseh in his prime
  His birch boat o’er thy waters sent,
  And pitched upon thy banks his tent. 
    In that long-gone, poetic time,
  Did some bronze bard thy flowing stream sit by
  And sing thy praises, e’en as I?

  Did some bronze lover ’neath this dark old tree
    Whisper of love unto his Indian maid? 
  And didst thou list his murmurs deep,
  And in thy bosom safely keep
    The many raging vows they said? 
  Or didst thou tell to fish and frog and bird
  The raptured scenes that there occurred?

  But, O dear stream, what volumes thou couldst tell
    To all who know thy language as I do,
  Of life and love and jealous hate! 
  But now to tattle were too late,—­
    Thou who hast ever been so true. 
  Tell not to every passing idler here
  All those sweet tales that reached thine ear.