The deadnin’ and the thicket’s jes’ a bilin’ full of June,
  Thum the rattle o’ the cricket, to the yallar-hammer’s tune;
  And the catbird in the bottom, and the sap-suck on the snag,
  Seems ef they cain’t—­od-rot’em!—­jes’ do nothin’ else but brag!

  They’s music in the twitter of the bluebird and the jay,
  And that sassy little critter jes’ a-peckin’ all the day;
  They’s music in the “flicker,” and they’s music in the thrush,
  And they’s music in the snicker o’ the chipmunk in the brush!

  They’s music all around me!—­And I go back, in a dream—­
  Sweeter yit than ever found me fast asleep—­and in the stream
  That used to split the medder whur the dandylions growed,
  I stand knee-deep, and redder than the sunset down the road.

  Then’s when I’ b’en a-fishin’!—­and they’s other fellers, too,
  With their hickry poles a-swishin’ out behind ’em; and a few
  Little “shiners” on our stringers, with their tails tiptoein’ bloom,
  As we dance ’em in our fingers all the happy journey home.

  I kin see us, true to Natur’, thum the time we started out
  With a biscuit and a ’tater in our little “roundabout!”
  I kin see our lines a-tanglin’, and our elbows in a jam,
  And our naked legs a-danglin’ thum the apern of the dam.

  I kin see the honeysuckle climbin’ up around the mill;
  And kin hear the worter chuckle, and the wheel a-growlin’ still;
  And thum the bank below it I kin steal the old canoe,
  And jes’ git in and row it like the miller used to do.

  W’y, I git my fancy focussed on the past so mortal plain
  I kin even smell the locus’-blossoms bloomin’ in the lane;
  And I hear the cow-bells clinkin’ sweeter tunes ’n “money musk”
  Far the lightnin’-bugs a-blinkin’and a-dancin’in the dusk.

  And so I keep on musin’, as the feller says, till I’m
  Firm-fixed in the conclusion that they hain’t no better time,
  When you come to cipher on it, than the old times,—­and, I swear,
  I kin wake and say “dog-gone-it!” jes’ as soft as any prayer!

HAS SHE FORGOTTEN.

I.

  Has she forgotten?  On this very May
  We were to meet here, with the birds and bees,
  As on that Sabbath, underneath the trees
  We strayed among the tombs, and stripped away
  The vines from these old granites, cold and gray—­
  And yet, indeed, not grim enough were they
  To stay our kisses, smiles and ecstacies,
  Or closer voice-lost vows and rhapsodies. 
  Has she forgotten—­that the May has won
  Its promise?—­that the bird-songs from the tree
  Are sprayed above the grasses as the sun
  Might jar the dazzling dew down showeringly? 
  Has she forgotten life—­love—­everyone—­
  Has she forgotten me—­forgotten me?