Animals and Nature

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This is the common air that bathes the globe.

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

There he heard a Lady talking, To some milk-white Hens of Dorking—

Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a sieve.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl! How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried: But what shall we do for a ring?” They sailed away, for a year and a day, To the land where the Bong-tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood With a ring at the end of his nose.

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five-pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, “O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are.”

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said: “It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, Four larks and a wren Have all built their nests in my beard.”

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,

That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!

Oh, to be in England now that April’s there, And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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