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| THERE is a singing in the summer air, | |
| The blue and brown moths flutter o’er the grass, | |
| The stubble bird is creaking in the wheat, | |
| And perch’d upon the honeysuckle-hedge | |
| Pipes the green linnet. Oh, the golden world! | 5 |
| The stir of life on every blade of grass, | |
| The motion and the joy on every bough, | |
| The glad feast everywhere, for things that love | |
| The sunshine, and for things that love the shade! | |
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| Aimlessly wandering with weary feet, | 10 |
| Watching the wool white clouds that wander by, | |
| I come upon a lonely place of shade,— | |
| A still green Pool, where with soft sound and stir | |
| The shadows of o’erhanging branches sleep, | |
| Save where they leave one dreamy space of blue, | 15 |
| O’er whose soft stillness ever and anon | |
| The feathery cirrus blows. Here unaware | |
| I pause, and leaning on my staff I add | |
| A shadow to the shadows; and behold! | |
| Dim dreams steal down upon me, with a hum | 20 |
| Of little wings, a murmuring of boughs, | |
| The dusky stir and motion dwelling here, | |
| Within this small green world. O’ershadow’d | |
| By dusky greenery, tho’ all around | |
| The sunshine throbs on fields of wheat and bean, | 25 |
| Downward I gaze into the dreamy blue, | |
| And pass into a waking sleep, wherein | |
| The green boughs rustle, feathery wreaths of cloud | |
| Pass softly, piloted by golden airs: | |
| The air is still,—no birds sing any more,— | 30 |
| And helpless as a tiny flying thing, | |
| I am alone in all the world with God. | |
| |
| The wind dies—not a leaf stirs—on the Pool | |
| The fly scarce moves; earth seems to hold her breath | |
| Until her heart stops, listening silently | 35 |
| For the far footsteps of the coming rain! | |
| |
| While thus I pause, it seems that I have gain’d | |
| New eyes to see; my brain grows sensitive | |
| To trivial things that, at another hour, | |
| Had pass’d unheeded. Suddenly the air | 40 |
| Shivers, the shadows in whose midst I stand | |
| Tremble and blacken—the blue eye o’ the Pool | |
| Is clos’d and clouded; with a sudden gleam | |
| Oiling its wings, a swallow darteth past, | |
| And weedling flowers beneath my feet thrust up | 45 |
| Their leaves, to feel the fragrant shower. Oh, hark! | |
| The thirsty leaves are troubled into sighs, | |
| And up above me, on the glistening boughs, | |
| Patters the summer rain! | |
| |
| Into a nook, | 50 |
| Screen’d by thick foliage of oak and beech, | |
| I creep for shelter; and the summer shower | |
| Murmurs around me. Oh, the drowsy sounds! | |
| The pattering rain, the numerous sigh of leaves, | |
| The deep, warm breathing of the scented air, | 55 |
| Sink sweet into my soul—until at last, | |
| Comes the soft ceasing of the gentle fall, | |
| And lo! the eye of blue within the Pool | |
| Opens again, while with a silvern gleam | |
| Dew diamonds twinkle moistly on the leaves, | 60 |
| Or, shaken downward by the summer wind, | |
| Fall melting on the Pool in rings of light! | |
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