Caterina’s Reviews > A Murmur in the Trees > Status Update

The Dandelion’s pallid tube
Astonishes the Grass,
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas—
The tube uplifts a signal Bud
And them a shouting Flower,—
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o’er.

The mushroom is the Elf of Plants
At evening, it is not—
At morning, in a Truffled Hut
It stops upon a Spot

As if it tarried always
And yet its whole career
Is shorter than a Snake’s Delay
And fleeter than a Tare—

....

Had Nature any supple Face
Or could she one contemn—
Had Nature an Apostate—
That Mushroom—it is Him!

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one’s name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!