Animals and Nature

Therefore to this dog will I, Tenderly not scornfully, Render praise and favor.

Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.

In May, when sea winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow.

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art— Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

St. Agnes’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold. The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold.

The poetry of earth is never dead.

Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs.

He is made one with Nature: there is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder to the song of night’s sweet bird.

Thou art unseen—but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes.

A light broke in upon my brain— It was the carol of a bird; It ceased, and then it came again, The sweetest song ear ever heard.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.

I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me: and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture.

The poor dog, in life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend.

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.