s;
You hear a dog bark from a low-roofed house
With cedars round its doors.

Then all is quiet as the wings
Of the high buzzard floating there;
Anon a woman's high-pitched voice that sings
An old camp-meeting air.

A flapping cock that crows; and then--
Heard drowsy through the rustling corn--
A flutter, and the cackling of a hen
Within a hay-sweet barn.

How still again! no water stirs;
No wind is heard; although the weeds
Are waved a little; and from silk-filled burrs
Drift by a few soft seeds.

So drugged with sleep and dreams, that you
Expect to see her gliding by,--
Hummed round of bees, through blossoms spilling dew,--
The Spirit of July.

THE OLD BARN

Low, swallow-swept and gray,
Between the orchard and the spring,
All its wide windows overflowing hay,
And crannied doors a-swing,
The old barn stands to-day.

Deep in its hay the Leghorn hides
A round white nest; and, humming soft
On roof and rafter, or its log-rude sides,
Black in the sun-shot loft,
The building hornet glides.

Along its corn-crib, cautiously
As thieving fingers, skulks the rat;
Or, in warped stalls of fragrant timothy,
Gnaws at some loosened slat,
Or passes shadowy.

A dream of drouth made audible
Before its door, hot, smooth, and shrill
All day the locust sings.... What other spell
Shall hold it, lazier still
Than the long day's, now tell?--

Dusk and the cricket and the strain
Of tree-toad and of frog; and stars
That burn above the rich west's ribbed stain;
And dropping pasture bars,
And cow-bells up the lane.

Night and the moon and katydid,
And leaf-lisp of the wind-touched boughs;
And mazy shadows that the fire-flies thrid;
And sweet breath of the cows;
And the lone owl here hid.

CLEARING

Before the wind, with rain-drowned stocks,
The pleated crimson hollyhocks
Are bending;
And, smouldering in the breaking brown,
Above the hills that edge the town,
The day is ending.

The air is heavy with the damp;
And, one by one, each cottage lamp
Is lighted;
Infrequent passers of the street
Stroll on or stop to talk or greet,
Benighted.

I look beyond my city yard,
And watch the white moon struggling hard,
Cloud-buried;
The wind is driving toward the east,
A wreck of pearl, all cracked and creased
And serried.

At times the moon, erupting, streaks
Some long cloud; like Andean peaks
That double
Horizon-vast volcano chains,
The ear