Pilot great clouds like towering argosies,

And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze.

With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach

Of placid murmur, under elm and beech,

The creek goes twinkling through long glows and glooms

Of woodland quiet, poppied with perfumes:

The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools

Glitter or dart; and by whose deeper pools

The blue kingfishers and the herons haunt;

That, often startled from the freckled flaunt

Of blackberry-lilies—where they feed and hide—

Trail a lank flight along the forestside

With eery clangor. Here a sycamore,

Smooth, wave-uprooted, builds from shore to shore

A headlong bridge; and there, a storm-hurled oak

Lays a long dam, where sand and gravel choke

The water's lazy way. Here mistflower blurs

Its bit of heaven; there the oxeye stirs

Its gloaming hues of bronze and gold; and here,

A gray cool stain, like dawn's own atmosphere,

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