the valley's steaming floor,
Shrilling keen with a million flutes the ancient spring-time lore,
I hear the myriad emerald frogs awake in the world once more.

All day when the clouds drive overhead and the shadows run below,
Crossing the wind-swept pasture lots where the thin, red willows glow,
There's not a throat in the joyous host that does not swell and blow.

And all night long to the march of stars the wild mad music thrills,
Voicing the birth of the glad wet spring in a thousand stops and trills,
Till the pale sun lifts through the rosy mists
and floats from the harbour hills.




Miss Pixie

_Did you ever meet Miss Pixie of the Spruces?
Did you ever glimpse her mocking elfin face?
Did you ever hear her calling while the whip-poor-wills were calling,
And slipped your pack and taken up the chase?_

Her feet are clad in moccasins and beads.
Her dress? Oh, next to nothing. Though undressed,
Her slender arms are circled round with vine
And dusky locks cling close about her breast.

Red berries droop below each pointed ear;
Her nut-brown legs are criss-crossed white with scratches;