You ask me to write you some verses! Not I
While the Crab and the Lion are lords of the sky —
Nay, wait till the Virgin gives place to the Scales
And the first leaves of autumn are swept by the gales.

If you'll give me a spade in the earth I will delve
If you'll lend me a hatchet I'll clutch at its helve
If you'll find me a knife there are branches to prune
But a pen makes me shudder — a goose-quill in June!

I have laid all my papers and books on the shelf
Why scribble while nature is writing herself
Each grass-blade a letter that sparkles with dew
And flowers for her capitals, gold red and blue?

I can read all day long from those pages of green
Whose characters lay through the winter unseen
Till out at the summons of sunshine they came
Like the words of a love-letter held to the flame

But to write in dead phrases! the roses have blown
Shall I sprinkle their damask with Eau de Cologne?
Shall I mock the sweet season of blossoming bowers
With a milliner's nosegay of calico flowers?

While the spice of the sassairas clings to my lips
While the axe I have chopped with smells sweet of the chips
While the turtles lie basking on fence rails and logs
While the meadows resound with the chorus of frogs

While the lily-pad greenbacks their promise display
Of the silver and gold that the lilies will pay,
While heavy the nest of the oriole swings
While Nature's gay buffo , the bobolink sings

Excuse me, dear friend; in your quest after verse
You may have gone farther — you can't have fared worse.
I send you my blessing, 'tis all that I can —
In the lazy, limp month of the flowers and the fan.