About the 15th of this month you may expectour Mr. -- , with the usual Spring Seed, etc., Catalogues. Florists Announcement.
Its forty in the shade to-day, the spouting eaves declare;
The boulders nose above the drift, the southern slopes are bare;
Hub-deep in slush Apollos car swings north along the Zod-
iac. Good luck, the Spring is back, and Pan is on the road!
His house is Gee & Tellus Sons, so goes his jest with men
He sold us Zeus knows what last year; hell take us in again.
Disguised behind the livery-team, fur-coated, rubber-shod
Yet Apis from the bull-pen lows he knows his brother God!
Now down the lines of tasseled pines the yearning whispers wake
Pithys of old thy love behold! Come in for Hermess sake!
How long since that so-Boston boot with reeling Maenads ran!
Numen adest! Let be the rest. Pipe and we pay, O Pan.
(What though his phlox and hollyhocks ere half a month demised?
What though his ampelopsis clambered not as advertised?
Though every seed was guaranteed and every standard true
Forget, forgive they did not live! Believe, and buy anew!)
Now oer a careless knee he flings the painted page abroad
Such bloom hath never eye beheld this side of Eden Sword;
Such fruit Pomona marks her own, yea, Liber oversees,
That we may reach (one dollar each) the Lost Hesperides!
Serene, assenting, unabashed, he writes our orders down:
Blue Asphodel on all our paths a few true bays for crown
Uncankered bud, immoral flower, and leaves that never fall
Apples of Gold, of Youth, of Health and thank you, Pan, thats all
.
Hes off along the drifted pent to catch the Windsor train,
And swindle every citizen from Keene to Lake Champlain.
But where his goats-hoof cut the crust beloved, look below
Hes left us (Ill forgive him all) the may-flower neath her snow!
