Many a noon shall find me laid In the pungent balsam shade, Where sharp breezes spring and shiver On some deep rough-coasted river, And the plangent waters come, Amber-hued and streaked with foam; Where beneath the sunburnt hills All day long the crowded mills With remorseless champ and scream Overlord the sluicing stream, And the rapids' iron roar Hammers at the forest's core; Where corded rafts creep slowly on, Glittering in the noonday sun, And the tawny river-dogs, Shepherding the branded logs, Bind and heave with cadenced cry; Where the blackened tugs go by, Panting hard and straining slow, Laboring at the weighty tow, Flat-nosed barges all in trim, Creeping in long cumbrous line, Loaded to the water's brim With the clean, cool-scented pine.
Perhaps in some low meadow-land, Stretching wide on either hand, I shall see the belted bees Rocking with the tricksy breeze In the spirèd meadow-sweet, Or with eager trampling feet Burrowing in the boneset blooms, Treading out the dry perfumes. Where sun-hot hay-fields newly mown Climb the hillside ruddy brown, I shall see the haymakers, While the noonday scarcely stirs, Brown of neck and booted gray, Tossing up the rustling hay, While the hay-racks bend and rock, As they take each scented cock, Jolting over dip and rise; And the wavering butterflies O'er the spaces brown and bare Light and wander here and there.
I shall stray by many a stream, Where the half-shut lilies gleam. Napping out the sultry days In the quiet secluded bays; Where the tasseled rushes tower, O'er the purple pickerel-flower. And the floating dragon-fly-- Azure glint and crystal gleam-- Watches o'er the burnished stream With his eye of ebony; Where the bull-frog lolls at rest On his float of lily-leaves, That the swaying water weaves, And distends his yellow breast, Lowing out from shore to shore With a hollow vibrant roar; Where the softest wind that blows As it lightly comes and goes, O'er the jungled river meads, Stirs a whisper in the reeds, And wakes the crowded bull-rushes From their stately reveries, Flashing through their long-leaved hordes Like a brandishing of swords; There, too, the frost-like arrow-flowers Tremble to the golden core, Children of enchanted hours, Whom the rustling river bore In the night's bewildered noon, Woven of water and the moon.