APRIL LEAVES.
Now strikes the sap with heady liquor
Through veins from winter free ; The flame of spring begins to flicker In every bush and tree.
• Q1111011 Elizabeth. t Nary Queen of Soot&
Where willows bead, now wave beneath Green shadows in the pond.
The chestnut from each gummy sheath Unfurls a drooping frond.
A mist of green is on the thorn,1 The birch is veiled in green, The aspen, maid not yet forlorn, Steals into moonlit sheen.
The ruddy-tasselled poplar shakes Its balsam on the air, And in their yellow-tufted brakes The sun-bright maples flare.
The slow oaks tint their swelling tips With purple and with brown; From each and all one message slips; " Come out, and leave the town.
Come, for the clement year allows, Come out, and breathe, and see How all the hues of all the boughs Are blent—for you and me."
STEPHEN GWYNN.
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