To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks, The mud-hen's whistle from the marsh at morn; To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks With iron roar of waters; far away Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon, To hear the querulous outcry of the loon; To lie among deep rocks, and watch all day On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by; Or hear from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay Pierce the bright morning with his jibing cry.
To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains, The thrasher humming from the farm near by, The prattling cricket's intermittent cry, The locust's rattle from the sultry lanes; Or in the shadow of some oaken spray, To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams, The far-off hay-fields, where the dusty teams Drive round and round the lessening squares of hay, And hear upon the wind, now loud, now low, With drowsy cadence half a summer's day, The clatter of the reapers come and go.
Far violet hills, horizons filmed with showers, The murmur of cool streams, the forest's gloom, The voices of the breathing grass, the hum Of ancient gardens overbanked with flowers: Thus, with a smile as golden as the dawn, And cool fair fingers radiantly divine, The mighty mother brings us in her hand, For all tired eyes and foreheads pinched and wan, Her restful cup, her beaker of bright wine: Drink, and be filled, and ye shall understand!
On such a day the shrunken stream Spends its last water and runs dry; Clouds like far turrets in a dream Stand baseless in the burning sky. On such a day at every rod The toilers in the hay-field halt, With dripping brows, and the parched sod Yields to the crushing foot like salt.
But here a little wind astir, Seen waterward in jetting lines, From yonder hillside topped with fir Comes pungent with the breath of pines; And here when all the noon hangs still, White-hot upon the city tiles, A perfume and a wintry chill Breathe from the yellow lumber-piles.
And all day long there falls a blur Of noises upon listless ears, The rumble of the trams, the stir Of barges at the clacking piers; The champ of wheels, the crash of steam, And ever, without change or stay, The drone, as through a troubled dream, Of waters falling far away.