 | [Poems by Drake in] The life and works of Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) |  |
XXVI
The moth-fly, as he shot the air,Crept under the leaf, and hid her there;
The katydid forgot to bray,
The prowling gnat fled fast away,
The fell mosquito checked his drone
And folded his wings until the fay was gone,
And the wily beetle dropped his head,
And fell on the ground as if he were dead;
They couched them close in the darksome shade,
They quaked all o'er and they sweat with fear,
For they had felt the blue bent blade,
And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear;
Many a time on a summer's night,
When the sky was clear and the moon was bright,
They had been roused from the haunted ground,
With the yelp and the bay of the fairy hound;
They had heard the tiny bugle horn,
They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string,
When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,
164
Feathered with down from the hum-bird's wing.
And now they deemed the courier ouphe
Some hunter sprite of the eildrich ground;
And they watched till they saw him mount the roof
That canopies the world around;
Then glad they left their covert lair,
And freaked about in the midnight air.
| [Poems by Drake in] The life and works of Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) | |