I <br /> <br />He makes a roadway of the crumbling fence, <br />Or on the fallen tree,-brown as a leaf <br />Fall stripes with russet,-gambols down the dense <br />Green twilight of the woods. We see not whence <br />He comes, nor whither (in a time so brief) <br />He vanishes-swift carrier of some Fay, <br />Some pixy steed that haunts our child-belief- <br />A goblin glimpse upon some wildwood way. <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />What harlequin mood of nature qualified <br />Him so with happiness? and limbed him with <br />Such young activity as winds, that ride <br />The ripples, have, dancing on every side? <br />As sunbeams know, that urge the sap and pith <br />Through hearts of trees? yet made him to delight, <br />Gnome-like, in darkness,-like a moonlight myth,- <br />Lairing in labyrinths of the under night. <br /> <br />III <br /> <br />Here, by a rock, beneath the moss, a hole <br />Leads to his home, the den wherein he sleeps; <br />Lulled by near noises of the laboring mole <br />Tunneling its mine-like some ungainly Troll- <br />Or by the tireless cricket there that keeps <br />Picking its rusty and monotonous lute; <br />Or slower sounds of grass that creeps and creeps, <br />And trees unrolling mighty root on root. <br /> <br />IV <br /> <br />Such is the music of his sleeping hours. <br />Day hath another-'tis a melody <br />He trips to, made by the assembled flowers, <br />And light and fragrance laughing 'mid the bowers, <br />And ripeness busy with the acorn-tree. <br />Such strains, perhaps, as filled with mute amaze <br />(The silent music of Earth's ecstasy) <br />The Satyr's soul, the Faun of classic days.<br /><br />Madison Julius Cawein<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-chipmunk-2/
