Her feet are clad in moccasins and beads. 
    Her dress?  Oh, next to nothing.  Though undressed,
  Her slender arms are circled round with vine
    And dusky locks cling close about her breast.

  Red berries droop below each pointed ear;
    Her nut-brown legs are criss-crossed white with scratches;
  Her merry laughter sifts among the pines;
    Her eager face gleams pale from milk-weed patches.

  And though I never yet have reached her hand—­
    God knows I’ve tried with all my heart’s desire;—­
  One morning just at dawn she caught me sleeping
    And with her soft lips touched my soul with fire.

  And once when camping near a foaming rip,
    Lying wide-eyed beneath the milky stars,
  Sudden I heard her voice ring sweet and clear,
    Calling my soul beyond the river bars.

  Dear, dancing Pixie of the wind and weather,
    Aglow with love and merriment and sun,
  I chase thee down my dreams, but catch thee never—­
    God grant I catch thee ere the trail is done!

  Did you ever meet Miss Pixie of the Thickets,
    Where the scarlet leaves leap tinkling from your feet? 
  Have you ever heard her calling while a million feet were falling,
    And a million lights were crowding all the street?

A-Fishing

  Now is the time for the luring fly
  Spring is awake and the waters high,
  Hackle and Doctor and Montreal,
  Bend to your cast that a king may die.

  Armed with a gaff and a clicking reel,
  High jack-boots and an empty creel,
  A yard of gut, a split bamboo,
  Beginner’s luck and a fisherman’s zeal.

  Over the hills at the rise of day,
  Through a sea of mist when the world is grey
  I hie me down to the river’s bend,
  Where the shadows gloom and the ripples play.

  Then all the length of an afternoon,
  The light reel sings to a thrilling tune,
  Till the basket sags with the speckled trout,
  And I wander home by an April moon.

The Berry Pickers

  When summer winds like scented waves bear fluffy flakes
          of cruising seeds,
  Above the stems of tawny grass and pale white wreaths of flowered weeds,
  And berries splash their scarlet stains across the dipping hills of sun,
  Their laughter lifts like silver bells and tinkling echoes sweetly run.

  Their faces far below the crests of rippling gold and shadowed green,
  They hear the dreams of drowsy bees and watch those buccaneers unseen
  Cling yellow to the clover masts and trailing ropes of wild blue pea,
  And breathe the brine of daisy froth that drifts
          between the walls of sea.

  Their fingers pluck the glowing fruit, their lips and cheeks
          are smeared and dyed;
  Their snowy bonnets brush the grass like lifting top-sails on a tide;
  And when their little pails brim red and rosy hands will hold no more,
  They steer long shadows down the waves that float
          their tired feet to shore.