THE MUSHROOM.
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.
'T is vegetation's juggler, The germ of alibi;Doth like a bubble antedate, And like a bubble hie.
I feel as if the grass were pleased To have it intermit;The surreptitious scion Of summer's circumspect.
Had nature any outcast face, Could she a son contemn, Had nature an Iscariot, That mushroom, -- it is him.
