The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants #1350

- Emily Dickinson

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants -

At Evening, it is not

At Morning, in a Truffled Hut

It stop opon a Spot

As if it tarried always

And yet it’s whole Career

Is shorter than a Snake’s Delay -

And fleeter than a Tare -

’Tis Vegetation’s Juggler -

The Germ of Alibi -

Doth like a Bubble antedate

And like a Bubble, hie -

I feel as if the Grass was pleased

To have it intermit -

This surreptitious Scion

Of Summer’s circumspect.

Had Nature any supple Face

Or could she one contemn -

Had Nature an Apostate -

That Mushroom - it is Him!

from: The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Copyright 1998.