To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks,

The mud-hen's whistle from the marsh at morn;

To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne

Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks

With iron roar of waters; far away

Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon,

To hear the querulous outcry of the loon;

To lie among deep rocks, and watch all day

On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by;

Or hear from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay

Pierce the bright morning with his jibing cry.

To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains,

The thrasher humming from the farm near by,

The prattling cricket's intermittent cry,

The locust's rattle from the sultry lanes;

Or in the shadow of some oaken spray,

To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams,

The far-off hay-fields, where the dusty teams

Drive round and round the lessening squares of hay,

And hear upon the wind, now loud, now low,

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