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 gra** 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.