The quail pipes here when noons are hot;
And here, in coolness sunlight-shot,
Beneath a roof of briers,
The red fox skulks at close of day;
And here, at night, the shadows gray
Stand like Franciscan friars,
With moonbeam beads whereon they pray.
Here yawns the woodchuck’s dark-dug hole;
And there the tunnel of the mole
Heaves under weed and flower;
A sandy pit-fall here and there
The ant-lion digs and lies a-lair
And here, for sun and shower,
The spider weaves a silvery snare.
The poison-oak’s rank tendrils twine
The rock’s south side; the trumpet-vine,
With crimson bugles sprinkled,
Makes green its eastern side; the west
Is rough with lichens; and, gray-pressed
Into an angle wrinkled,
The hornets hang an oblong nest.
The north is hid from sun and star,
And here,—like an Inquisitor
Of Faëry Inquisition,
Who roots out Elfland heresy,—
Deep in the rock, cowled shadowy
And grave as his commission,
The owl sits magisterially.
STANDING-STONE CREEK
A weed-grown slope, whereon the rain
Has washed the brown rocks bare,
Leads tangled from a lonely lane
Down to a creek’s broad stair
Of stone, that, through the solitude,
Winds onward to a quiet wood.
An intermittent roof of shade
The beech above it throws;
Along its steps a balustrade
Of beauty builds the rose;
In which, a stately lamp of green,
At intervals, the cedar’s seen.
The water, carpeting each ledge
Of rock that runs across,
Glints ’twixt a flow’r-embroidered edge
Of ferns and grass and moss;
And in its deeps the wood and sky
Seem patterns of the softest dye.
Long corridors of pleasant dusk
Within the house of leaves
It reaches; where, on looms of musk,
The ceaseless locust weaves
A web of summer; and perfume
Trails a sweet gown from room to room.