Joseph Rodman Drake

“ They had heard of twang of the maize-silk string,
When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,
And the nettle-shaft through the air was borne,
Feathered with down the hum-bird's wing.
And now they deemed the courier ouphe,
Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground;
And they watched till they saw him mount the roof
That canopies the world around ”

“ Through the wave the sturgeon flew,
And, like the heaven-shot javelin,
He sprung above the waters blue.
Instant as the star-fall light,
He plunged him in the deep again,
But left an arch of silver bright
The rainbow of the moony main. ”

“ IV. They come from beds of lichen green,
They creep from the mullen's velvet screen;
Some on the backs of beetles fly
From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high,
And rock'd about in the evening breeze ”

“ Of the gauze-winged katy-did;
And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will,
Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings,
Ever a note of wail and woe,
Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow. ”

“ At twilight in the west afar;
'Twas tied with threads of dawning gold,
And buttoned with a sparkling star. ”

“ Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.
II. The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnished length of wavy beam
In an eel-like, spiral line below ”

“ Her Ouphs that, cloaked in leaf-gold, skim the breeze,
And fairies, swarming——————"
Tennant's Anster Fair.
POEM. I.
'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night —
The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright ”