The Tricks of Nature

Sunny-brown the patient Quail
     Sits amid the withered grass.
That the eyes of men may fail
     To behold him as they pass.
Close against the mossy boughs
     Humming-bird – the fairy sprite,
Builds her mossy baby-home
     All unseen hen full in sight!
Crippled Partridge limps away,
     From her hidden brood to ??
So to seem an easy prey
     Till her nestlings are secure;
Then at once she leaps in air
     On those wings so deftly healed,
Wheels and drops – you know not where,
     In the thickets of the field.
See the timid ptarmigan
     White against the arctic snow;
Splendid as the flowers they ??
     Wings of tropic plumage glow.
Here a withered twig you see
     Walk with asymmetric limbs;
There a dry Leaf (feigned to be,)
     Open-winged in ether swims!
In the gardens of the sea
     Where the fragment breaker booms
Have I seen a tiny tree
     White with mimicry of blooms;
Every flower a separate life;
     Every petal of quick flesh;
From its trunk, in branches rife,
     Generations rose afresh.
With her pets in wood and wave
     Nature loves to play bo-peep;
Though her face be stern and grave,
     Subtle smiles across it sweep
Full of innocent deceit
     Is, withal, the Goodly Dame;
Her determined ends to meet
     With a sort of cross-eyed aim.
She says – “Here are plums to eat”
     Where a school-boy hops and skips
“Take them, they are ripe and sweet,”
     What she means is – “spread the pits!”
“Honey bee, I’ve nectar here,”—
     Saith she,—“held for you in trust!”
Then to pay for his good cheer
     Sends him peddling pollen-dust!
O she has a thousand ways
     To make others do her will—
And to her eternal praise
     They who serve are gainers still!