MINSTRELS OF THE NIGHT
Woodland voices I have heard— Laughing waters, beast and bird; Red-squirrels jabb’ring while they eat, Cones a-dropping at your feet; Pecker diving for a worm, Ringing echoes with each squirm; Squawking jays and the palaver Of a pheasant breaking cover; But the strangest sound to me Comes when winds blow fitfully, In the darkness, like a moan— Chilling to the marrow-bone, Dying now upon the gale Like a far-off cougar’s wail. Now it rises—peevish, wild, Like the fretting of a child; With an easing wind the thing Squeaks like monkeys jibbering. Thus a leaning, scraping tree Sounds its spookish minstrelsy, When the night-wind, teasing so, Starts it rocking to and fro.