idly,

My oriole, my glance of summer fire,

Is come at last, and, ever on the watch, Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound

About the bough to help his housekeepTwitches and scouts by turns, blessing ing, his luck,

Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, Divines the providence that hides and helps.

Heave, ho! Heave, ho! he whistles as the twine

Slackens its hold; once more, now and a flash

Lightens across the sunlight to the elm

Their roots, like molten metal cooled in flowing,

Stiffened in coils and runnels down the bank.

The friend of all the winds, wide-armed he towers

And glints his steely aglets in the

sun,

Or whitens fitfully with sudden bloom Of leaves breeze-lifted, much as when a shoal

Of devious minnows wheel from where a pike

Lurks balanced 'neath the lily-pads, and whirl

A rood of silver bellies to the day.

Alas! no acorn from the British oak 'Neath which slim fairies tripping wrought those rings

Of greenest emerald, wherewith fireside life

Did with the invisible spirit of Nature wed,

Was ever planted here! No darnel fancy

Might choke one useful blade in Puritan fields;

With horn and hoof the good old Devil

came,

The witch's broomstick was not contraband,

But all that superstition had of fair,
Or piety of native sweet, was doomed.
And if there be who nurse unholy faiths,
Fearing their god as if he were a
wolf

That snuffed round every home and was not seen,

There should be some to watch and keep alive

All beautiful beliefs. And such was that,

By solitary shepherd first surmised Under Thessalian oaks, loved by some maid

Of royal stirp, that silent came and vanished,

As near her nest the hermit thrush, nor dared