Nature and Elements

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three.

It was roses, roses all the way.

And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats. Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives— Followed the Piper for their lives.

Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats, And bit the babies in the cradles, And ate the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles.

The year’s at the spring And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hillside’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn: God’s in his heaven— All’s right with the world.

The year’s at the spring And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hillside’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn: God’s in his heaven— All’s right with the world.

Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of harvest-home; All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storms begin.

In her sepulcher there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea.

It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispèd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere: It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year.

The silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn.

Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn.

The Night is mother of the Day, The Winter of the Spring, And ever upon old Decay The greenest mosses cling.

In the long, sleepless watches of the night.

The fate of a nation was riding that night.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.

One if by land, and two if by sea; 1 And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm.

I remember the black wharves and the slips, And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and majesty of the ships, And the magic of the sea.

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks… Stand like Druids of old.