me. The poet first gives his attention to a little brook that "breaks
its shallow gossip" at his feet and "drowns the oriole's voice:"--

"But moveth not that wise and ancient cow,
Who chews her juicy cud so languid now
Beneath her favorite elm, whose drooping bough
Lulls all but inward vision fast asleep:
But still, her tireless tail a pendulum sweep
Mysterious clock-work guides, and some hid pulley
Her drowsy cud, each moment, raises duly.

"Of this great, wondrous world she has seen more
Than you, my little brook, and cropped its store
Of succulent grass on many a mead and lawn;
And strayed to distant uplands in the dawn.
And she has had some dark experience
Of graceless man's ingratitude; and hence
Her ways have not been ways of pleasantness,
Nor all her paths of peace. But her distress
And grief she has lived past; your giddy round
Disturbs her not, for she is learned profound
In deep brahminical philosophy.
She chews the cud of sweetest revery
Above your worldly prattle, brooklet merry,
Oblivious of all things sublunary."

The cow figures in Grecian mythology, and in the Oriental literature is
treated as a sacred animal. "The clouds are cows and the rain milk." I
remember what Herodotus says of the Egyptians' worship of heifers and
steers; and in the traditions of the Celtic nations the cow is regarded
as a divinity. In Norse mythology the milk of the cow Andhumbla afforded
nourishment to the Frost giants, and it was she that licked into being
and into shape a god, the father of Odin. If anything could lick a god
into shape, certainly the cow could do it. You may see her perform this
office for young Taurus any spring. She licks him out of the fogs and
bewilderments and uncertainties in which he finds himself on first
landing upon these shores, and up onto his feet in an incredibly short
time. Indeed, that potent tongue of hers can almost make the dead alive
any day, and the creative lick of the old Scandinavian mother cow is
only a large-lettered rendering of the commonest facts.

The horse belongs to the fiery god Mars. He favors war, and is one of
its oldest, most available, and most formidable engines. The steed is
clothed with thunder, and smells the battle from afar; but the cattle
upon a thousand hills denote that peace and plenty bear s