THE BRIDLE-PATH
I
Through meadows of the ironweeds,
Whose purple blooms hang, slipping
The morning dew in twinkling beads,
The thin path twists and, winding, leads
Through woodland hollows dripping;
Down to a creek of rocks and reeds;
On to a lilied dam that feeds
A mill, whose wheel through willow-bredes
Winks, the white water whipping.
II
It wends through meads of mint and brush
Where silvery seeds drift drowsy,
Or swoon along the heatful hush;
And where the bobwhite, in the bush,
The elder, blooming frowsy,
Keeps calling clear: then through a crush
Of crowded saplings, low and lush;
Then by a pool of flag and rush
With brier-rose petaled blowsy.
III
Thence, o’er the ragweed fallow-lot,
Whose low rail-fence encumbers
The dense-packed berries ripening hot;
Where, in the heaven, one far spot
Of gray, the gray hawk slumbers;
Then through the greenwood where the rot
Of leaves and loam smells cool; and, shot
With dotting dark, the touch-me-not
Swings curling horns in numbers.
IV
It winds round rocks that bulge and lie
Deep in damp ferns and mosses,—
Each like a giant on his thigh
Watching some forest quarry die;—
And thence it frailly crosses
A bramble-bridge; whence, whirring high,
A partridge startles,—’thwart the sky
A jarring light,—where, babbling by,
The brook its diamonds tosses.