  HEARD IN ARCADY MUSIC IN THE GRASS I In the summer of the summer, when the hazy air is sweet With the breath of crimson clover, and the day’s a-shine with heat, When the sky is blue and burning and the clouds a downy mass, When the breeze is idly dawdling, there is music in the grass— Just a thistly, whistly sound In the tangles near the ground; And the flitting fairies often stop to listen as they pass. Just a lisping, whisp’ring tune, Like a bumblebee’s bassoon, In a far-away fantasia, is the music in the grass. II Would you know what makes the music? On each slender, quivering blade There are notes and chords and phrases by the bees and crickets played; And the grasshoppers and locusts strive each other to surpass In their brave interpretation of the music in the grass. By the roguish breezes tossed You might think it would get lost, But the careful fairies guard it, watching closely as they pass. So on every summer day, Sounding faint and far away, Is the mystic, murmuring marvel of the music in the grass. DITHYRAMB BY AN ARCADIAN POETTO A MILKMAID IN ARCADY I hail thee, O Milkmaid! Goddess of the gaudy morn, Hail! Across the mead tripping, Invariably across the mead tripping, The merry mead with cowslips blooming, With daisies blooming, The Milkmaid also more or less blooming! I hail thee, O Milkmaid! I recognize the value of thy pail in literature and art. What were a pastoral poet without thee? Oh, I know thee, Milkmaid! I hail thy jaunty juvenescence. I know thy eighteen summers and thy eternal springs. Ay, I know thy trials! I know how thou art outspread over pastoral poetry. Rampant, ubiquitous, inevitable, thy riotings in pastoral poetry. And in masterpieces of pastoral art! How oft have I seen thee sitting; On a tri-legged stool sitting; On the wrong side of the cow sitting; Garbed in all thy preposterous paraphernalia. I know thy paraphernalia— Yea, even thy impossible milkpail and thy improbable bodice. Short-skirted Siren! Big-hatted Beauty! What were the gentle spring without thee? I hail thee! I hail thy vernality, and I rejoice in thy hackneyed ubiquitousness. I hail the superiority of thy inferiorness, and I lay at thy feet this garland of gratuitous Hails! “ON THE WATER ALL SORTS OF BOATS ARE USED”
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