LET men remember, when they pray,
The rose and silver dawns of May,
Most palely, spiritually gray;

The sky above the blossomed trees,
Pale as December Arctic seas,
Pure as the white anemones.

On such a morning, lightly swung
By the chance song a bluebird sung,
The silence like an incense hung.

A rod away, you'd scarcely know
If these were apple-blooms ablow
Or a reverted April snow;

But over all the sentient earth
Young lantern-leaves, for joy of birth,
Hung out the saffron hues of mirth.

The honeysucker wove his loom
Of busy noise from plume to plume
Of rosy-clustered apple-bloom.

Went by the bee; the butterfly
On soft and papery wings went by,
Beneath his low, sufficient sky.

And on a sudden flaw and swell,
If 't were a petal white that fell,
Or a blown moth, you 'd hardly tell,

So soft the air, so hung with scents
That fell from these whites flowery tents
On odorous beds of innocents.

The church bells, by the distance drowned,
Came to me like the ghost of sound,
Soft-choired with birds that sang around;

And dim as distance were the blue
Slopes, and the hills I thought I knew,
Behind the mist, and shining through.