Then in the autumn, by the waterside, Leaf-huddled; or along the weed-grown walks, He dirges low the flowers that have died, Or with their ghosts holds solitary talks. Lover of warmth, all day above the click And crunching of the sorghum-press, through thick Sweet steam of juice; all night when, white as chalk, The hunter’s-moon hangs o’er the rustling rick, Within the barn ’mid munching cow and steer,-- Soft as a memory the heart holds dear,-- We hear his _Cheer, cheer, cheer_.
Kinsman and cousin of the Faëry Race, All winter long he sets his sober mirth,-- That brings good-luck to many a fireplace,-- To folk-lore song and saga of the hearth. Between the back-log’s bluster and the slim High twittering of the kettle,--sounds that hymn Home-comforts,--when, outside, the starless earth Is icicled in every laden limb,-- Defying frost and all the sad and sere,-- Like love that dies not and is always near,-- We hear his _Cheer, cheer, cheer_.
Secluded, solitary on some underbough Or cradled in a leaf, ’mid glimmering light, Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching how The slow toadstool comes bulging, moony white, Through loosening loam; or how, against the night, The glow-worm gathers silver to endow The darkness with; or how the dew conspires To hang at dusk with lamps of chilly fires Each blade that shrivels now.
O vague confederate of the whippoorwill, Of owl and cricket and the katydid! Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrill Vibrating note and send’st it where, half hid In cedars, twilight sleeps--each azure lid Drooping a line of golden eyeball still.-- Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voice Within the Garden of the Hours apoise On dusk’s deep daffodil.
Minstrel of moisture! silent when high noon Shows her tanned face among the thirsting clover And parching meadows, thy tenebrious tune Wakes with the dew or when the rain is over. Thou troubadour of wetness and damp lover Of all cool things! admitted comrade boon Of twilight’s hush, and little intimate Of eve’s first fluttering star and delicate Round rim of rainy moon!
Art trumpeter of Dwarfland? does thy horn Inform the gnomes and goblins of the hour When they may gambol under haw and thorn, Straddling each winking web and twinkling flower? Or bell-ringer of Elfland? whose tall tower The liriodendron is? from whence is borne The elfin music of thy bell’s deep bass, To summon Fairies to their starlit maze, To summon them or warn.