I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made
    Against the bitter East their barricade,
    And, guided by its sweet
    Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell,
    The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell
    Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet.

    From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pines
    Moaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming vines
    Lifted their glad surprise,
    While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees
    His feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze,
    And snow-drifts lingered under April skies.

    As, pausing, o'er the lonely flower I bent,
    I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent,
    Which yet find room,
    Through care and cumber, coldness and decay,
    To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day
    And make the sad earth happier for their bloom.

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