II
And we had large experience with the stars
And sweet acquaintance with the clovered sods,
The seasons were our epics, filled with wars,
And heroes' councils and untroubled gods.
The groves elegiac, rivers pastoral,
Meadows athrill with sudden tragedies,
With loves of larks aloft and lyrical,
And busy comedy of the citizen bees.
Still of their genial fellowship who wait
The spring's incoming as a marriage morn
Whom fall and winter winds will make elate
As bugles a young hunter, we were borne
Along the casual current of each day
Apart from those who trod the Roman Way.