prickly houses Agog at news which reached them first In sap's carouses. 

 The long noons turn the ribstons red, The pippins yellow; The wild duck from his reedy bed Summons his fellow. 

 The robins keep the underbrush Songless and wary, As though they feared some frostier hush Might bid them tarry; 

 Perhaps in the great North they heard Of silence falling Upon the world without a word, White and appalling. 

 The ash-tree and the lady-fern, In russet frondage, Proclaim 'tis time for our return To vagabondage. 

 All summer idle have we kept; But on a morning, Where the blue hazy mountains slept, A scarlet warning 

 Disturbs our day-dream with a start; A leaf turns over; And every earthling is at heart Once more a rover. 

  All winter we shall toil and plod, Eating and drinking; But now's the little time when God Sets folk to thinking. 

 "Consider," says the quiet sun, "How far I wander; Yet when had I not time on one More flower to squander?" 

 "Consider," says the restless tide, "My endless labor; Yet when was I content beside My nearest neighbor?" 

 So wander-lust to wander-lure, As seed to season Must rise and wend, possessed and sure In sweet unreason. 

 For doorstone and repose are good, And kind is duty; But joy is in the solitude With shy-heart beauty. 

 And Truth is one whose ways are meek Beyond foretelling; And far his journey who would seek Her lowly dwelling. 

 She leads him by a thousand heights, Lonelily faring, With sunrise and with eagle flights To mate his daring. 

  For her he fronts a vaster fog Than Leif of yore did, Voyaging for continents no log Has yet recorded. 

 He travels by a polar star, Now bright, now hidden, For a free land, though rest be far And roads forbidden, 

 Till on a day with sweet coarse bread And wine she stays him, Then in a cool and narrow bed To slumber lays him. 

 So we are hers. And, fellows mine Of fin and feather, By shady wood and shadowy brine, When comes the weather 

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