You waken, thrilling at the trill Of some wild bird that seems to spill The silence full of winey drips Of song that Fancy sips and sips.
Betimes, in brambled lanes wherethrough The chipmunk stripes himself from view, You pause to lop a creamy spray Of elder-blossoms by the way.
Or where the morning dew is yet Gray on the topmost rail, you set A sudden palm and, vaulting, meet Your vaulting shadow in the wheat.
On lordly swards, of suave incline, Entessellate with shade and shine, You shall misdoubt your lowly birth, Clad on as one of princely worth:
The falcon on your wrist shall ride-- Your milk-white Arab side by side With one of raven-black.--You fain Would kiss the hand that holds the rein.
Nay, nay, Romancer! Poet! Seer! Sing us back home--from there to here; Grant your high grace and wit, but we Most honor your simplicity.--
Herein are blown from out the South Songs blithe as those of Pan's pursed mouth-- As sweet in voice as, in perfume, The night-breath of magnolia-bloom.
Mellow hazes, lowly trailing Over wood and meadow, veiling Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing Sailor-like to foreign lands; And the north-wind overleaping Summer's brink, and floodlike sweeping Wrecks of roses where the weeping Willows wring their helpless hands.
Flared, like Titan torches flinging Flakes of flame and embers, springing From the vale the trees stand swinging In the moaning atmosphere; While in dead'ning-lands the lowing Of the cattle, sadder growing, Fills the sense to overflowing With the sorrow of the year.
Sorrowfully, yet the sweeter Sings the brook in rippled meter Under boughs that lithely teeter Lorn birds, answering from the shores Through the viny, shady-shiny Interspaces, shot with tiny Flying motes that fleck the winy Wave-engraven sycamores.
Fields of ragged stubble, wrangled With rank weeds, and shocks of tangled Corn, with crests like rent plumes dangled Over Harvest's battle-piain; And the sudden whir and whistle Of the quail that, like a missile, Whizzes over thorn and thistle, And, a missile, drops again.
Muffled voices, hid in thickets Where the redbird stops to stick its Ruddy beak betwixt the pickets Of the truant's rustic trap; And the sound of laughter ringing Where, within the wild-vine swinging, Climb Bacchante's schoolmates, flinging Purple clusters in her lap.