The Old Byway

Its rotting fence one scarcely sees
Through sumac and wild blackberries.
Thick elder and the bramble-rose,
Big ox-eyed daisies where the bees
Hang droning in repose.

The little lizards lie all day
Gray on its rocks of lichen-gray;
And there, gay Ariels of the sun,
The butterflies make bright its way,
And paths where chipmunks run.

Its lyric there the redbird lifts,
While, overhead, the swallow drifts
'Neath sun-soaked clouds of palest cream,--
In which the wind makes azure rifts,--
And there the wood-doves dream.

The brown grasshoppers rasp and bound
'Mid weeds and briars that hedge it round;
And in its grass-grown ruts,--where stirs
The harmless snake,--mole-crickets sound;
O'erhead the locust whirs.

At evening, when the sad west turns
To lonely night a cheek that burns,
The tree-toads in the wild-plum sing;
And ghosts of long-dead flowers and ferns
The wind wakes, whispering.