With which to seek him through that awful night. 
 O years of nights as vain!—­Stars never rise
But well might miss their glitter in the light
 Of tears in mother-eyes!

So—­on, with quickened breaths, I follow still—­
 My avant-courier must be obeyed! 
Thus am I led, and thus the path, at will,
 Invites me to invade

A meadow’s precincts, where my daring guide
 Clambers the steps of an old-fashioned stile,
And stumbles down again, the other side,
 To gambol there awhile

In pranks of hide-and-seek, as on ahead
 I see it running, while the clover-stalks
Shake rosy fists at me, as though they said—­
 “You dog our country—­walks

“And mutilate us with your walking-stick!—­
  We will not suffer tamely what you do,
And warn you at your peril,—­for we’ll sic
  Our bumblebees on you!”

But I smile back, in airy nonchalance,—­
 The more determined on my wayward quest,
As some bright memory a moment dawns
 A morning in my breast—­

Sending a thrill that hurries me along
 In faulty similes of childish skips,
Enthused with lithe contortions of a song
 Performing on my lips.

In wild meanderings o’er pasture wealth—­
 Erratic wanderings through dead’ning-lands,
Where sly old brambles, plucking me by stealth,
 Put berries in my hands: 

Or the path climbs a bowlder—­wades a slough—­
 Or, rollicking through buttercups and flags,
Goes gayly dancing o’er a deep bayou
 On old tree-trunks and snags: 

Or, at the creek, leads o’er a limpid pool
 Upon a bridge the stream itself has made,
With some Spring-freshet for the mighty tool
 That its foundation laid.

I pause a moment here to bend and muse,
  With dreamy eyes, on my reflection, where
A boat-backed bug drifts on a helpless cruise,
  Or wildly oars the air,

As, dimly seen, the pirate of the brook—­
  The pike, whose jaunty hulk denotes his speed—­
Swings pivoting about, with wary look
  Of low and cunning greed.

Till, filled with other thought, I turn again
  To where the pathway enters in a realm
Of lordly woodland, under sovereign reign
  Of towering oak and elm.

A puritanic quiet here reviles
  The almost whispered warble from the hedge. 
And takes a locust’s rasping voice and files
  The silence to an edge.

In such a solitude my sombre way
  Strays like a misanthrope within a gloom
Of his own shadows—­till the perfect day
  Bursts into sudden bloom,

And crowns a long, declining stretch of space,
  Where King Corn’s armies lie with flags unfurled. 
And where the valley’s dint in Nature’s face
  Dimples a smiling world.

And lo! through mists that may not be dispelled,
  I see an old farm homestead, as in dreams,
Where, like a gem in costly setting held,
  The old log cabin gleams.