Читать книгу Shapes and Shadows - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 9

Here, at its base, in dingled deeps

Of spice-bush, where the ivy creeps,

The cold spring scoops its hollow;

And there three mossy stepping-stones

Make ripple murmurs; undertones

Of foam that blend and follow

With voices of the wood that drones.

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 ground-hog'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,

That roots out Elf-land heresy, —

Deep in the rock, with mystery

Cowled for his grave commission,

The Owl sits magisterially.