Then forth she fares, About the middle of the month of May, A young girl, wild-eyed, gay; The mountains are her stairs, The birds her harbingers, With merry song The peewit pipes her as she trips along-- The trumpet flowers blow fanfares. Even the sea caves know her And deep down The mermen chime the bells In some dim town, Where wrecks lie rotten and forgotten; The shark's fin glides More avidly among the sea-isle tides-- The whole glad earth Hails her with gales of mirth. The frantic midges dance; There is tumultuous lowing from the cattle. When Spring fares northward from the South, The young sun hungers for her cherry mouth And the black stallions scream as if in battle.
Now come the Dog Days When the fat-faced sun Like Falstaff pours hot jest On Prince and thieves; The earth at morning smokes And at high noon Straight downward point the listless hanging leaves.
_Come, love, come, come away with me, Beneath the arbor tree, Where is sweet greenery and shade within; Shall we not take our ease in love's own inn?_
Come to that elfin place Where fawns feed on the tender grass And slim, shy shepherds come To see their sunburnt face Upon a water glass, Miraculously still-- Ah! Magic pool! They let the lead-sheep's bell Grow fainter, fainter down the winding dell, Until the only tone That comes is the far "_lina-lina-lone_" Of strayed sheep wandering on a windy hill.
_Come, love, come, come away with me; Drink from the coldest spring, Where little frogs make Attic melody, Tonight, perhaps, some moon-fooled bird will sing._
Dog Days, I wish my love Would come and live with me, Beneath a tented tree, The lush catalpa that in summer flowers, Sol, I could laugh at thee! If dalliance and sweet kisses sped the hours.
The amber foam creams from the cider flagons, Backward the shadow of the ground-hog shrinks, The lanes creak with the laden harvest wagons, And the fur thickens on the owl-eyed lynx, The hunter sees cold mist about the moon, And in the bottom lands at morn, The print of tiny, thievish, fairy hands Where the raccoon last night went stealing corn.
"The seasons wait their turn among the stars."
Come from the blinding sun fields where you are, Come from the interspace of star and star, Summer lies sleeping in her dusty tomb, The owlets mourn her through the woodland's gloom Where all the night birds are.