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, insect-Ariels of the sun,

The butterflies make bright its way,

Its path where chipmunks run.

A lyric there the redbird lifts,

While, twittering, the swallow drifts

‘ Neath wandering clouds of sleepy cream,—

In which the wind makes azure rifts,—

O'er dells where wood-doves dream.

The brown grasshoppers rasp and bound

Mid weeds and briers that hedge it round;

And in its grass-grown ruts,— where stirs

The harmless snake,— mole-crickets sound

Their faery dulcimers.

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 winds wake, whispering.