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MORNING THE COCK hath crowed. I hear the doors unbarred; | |
| Down to the grass-grown porch my way I take, | |
| And hear, beside the well within the yard, | |
| Full many an ancient quacking, splashing drake, | |
| And gabbling goose, and noisy brood-hen,—all | 5 |
| Responding to yon strutting gobbler’s call. | |
| |
| The dew is thick upon the velvet grass, | |
| The porch rails hold it in translucent drops, | |
| And as the cattle from the enclosure pass, | |
| Each one, alternate, slowly halts and crops | 10 |
| The tall, green spears, with all their dewy load, | |
| Which grow beside the well-known pasture-road. | |
| |
| A humid polish is on all the leaves,— | |
| The birds flit in and out with varied notes, | |
| The noisy swallows twitter ’neath the eaves, | 15 |
| A partridge whistle through the garden floats, | |
| While yonder gaudy peacock harshly cries, | |
| As red and gold flush all the eastern skies. | |
| |
| Up comes the sun! Through the dense leaves a spot | |
| Of splendid light drinks up the dew; the breeze | 20 |
| Which late made leafy music dies; the day grows hot, | |
| And slumbrous sounds come from marauding bees: | |
| The burnished river like a sword-blade shines, | |
| Save where ’t is shadowed by the solemn pines. | |
| |
NOON Over the farm is brooding silence now,— | 25 |
| No reaper’s song, no raven’s clangor harsh, | |
| No bleat of sheep, no distant low of cow, | |
| No croak of frogs within the spreading marsh, | |
| No bragging cock from littered farmyard crows,— | |
| The scene is steeped in silence and repose. | 30 |
| |
| A trembling haze hangs over all the fields,— | |
| The panting cattle in the river stand, | |
| Seeking the coolness which its wave scarce yields. | |
| It seems a Sabbath through the drowsy land; | |
| So hushed is all beneath the Summer’s spell, | 35 |
| I pause and listen for some faint church bell. | |
| |
| The leaves are motionless, the song-birds mute; | |
| The very air seems somnolent and sick: | |
| The spreading branches with o’er-ripened fruit | |
| Show in the sunshine all their clusters thick, | 40 |
| While now and then a mellow apple falls | |
| With a dull thud within the orchard’s walls. | |
| |
| The sky has but one solitary cloud, | |
| Like a dark island in a sea of light; | |
| The parching furrows ’twixt the corn-rows ploughed | 45 |
| Seem fairly dancing in my dazzled sight, | |
| While over yonder road a dusty haze | |
| Grows luminous beneath the sun’s fierce blaze. | |
| |
EVENING That solitary cloud grows dark and wide, | |
| While distant thunder rumbles in the air,— | 50 |
| A fitful ripple breaks the river’s tide,— | |
| The lazy cattle are no longer there, | |
| But homeward come, in long procession slow, | |
| With many a bleat and many a plaintive low. | |
| |
| Darker and wider spreading o’er the west | 55 |
| Advancing clouds, each in fantastic form, | |
| And mirrored turrets on the river’s breast, | |
| Tell in advance the coming of a storm,— | |
| Closer and brighter glares the lightning’s flash, | |
| And louder, nearer sounds the thunder’s crash. | 60 |
| |
| The air of evening is intensely hot, | |
| The breeze feels heated as it fans my brows,— | |
| Now sullen rain-drops patter down like shot, | |
| Strike in the grass, or rattle mid the boughs. | |
| A sultry lull, and then a gust again,— | 65 |
| And now I see the thick advancing rain! | |
| |
| It fairly hisses as it drives along, | |
| And where it strikes breaks up in silvery spray | |
| As if ’t were dancing to the fitful song | |
| Made by the trees, which twist themselves and sway | 70 |
| In contest with the wind, that rises fast | |
| Until the breeze becomes a furious blast. | |
| |
| And now, the sudden, fitful storm has fled, | |
| The clouds lie piled up in the splendid West, | |
| In massive shadow tipped with purplish red, | 75 |
| Crimson, or gold. The scene is one of rest; | |
| And on the bosom of yon still lagoon | |
| I see the crescent of the pallid moon. | |
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