SEEKING.

"And where, and among what pleasant places,
Have ye been, that ye come again
With your laps so full of flowers, and your faces
Like buds blown fresh after rain?"

"We have been," said the children, speaking
In their gladness, as the birds chime,
All together,--"we have been seeking
For the Fairies of olden time;
For we thought, they are only hidden,--
They would never surely go
From this green earth all unbidden,
And the children that love them so.
Though they come not around us leaping,
As they did when they and the world
Were young, we shall find them sleeping
Within some broad leaf curled;
For the lily its white doors closes
But only over the bee,
And we looked through the summer roses,
Leaf by leaf, so carefully.

But we thought, rolled up we shall find them
Among mosses old and dry;
From gossamer threads that bind them,
They will start like the butterfly,