I hear leaves drinking rain;
I hear rich leaves on top
Giving the poor beneath
Drop after drop;
'Tis a sweet noise to hear
These green leaves drinking near.

And when the Sun comes out,
After this Rain shall stop,
A wondrous Light will fill
Each dark, round drop;
I hope the Sun shines bright:
'Twill be a lovely sight.

Ihear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses;
All night, from their stalls, the importunate tramping and neighing.
Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle,
Straight, grim, and abreast, go the weatherworn, galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the riding.

I had a dove and the sweet dove died;
And I have thought it died of grieving:
O what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied,
With a silken thread of my own hand's weaving;
Sweet little red feet! why should you die--
Why should you leave me, sweet bird! Why?
You lived alone in the forest-tree,
Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me?
I kissed you oft and gave you white peas;
Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

I envy e'en the fly its gleams of joy
In the green woods from being but a boy
Among the vulgar and the lowly bred
I envied e'en the hare her grassy bed
Innured to strife and hardship from a child
I traced with lonely step the desert wild
Sigh'd o'er bird pleasures but no nest destroyed
With pleasure felt the singing they enjoyed
Saw nature smile on all and shed no tears
A slave through ages though a child in years
The mockery and scorn of those more old
An Esop in the worlds extended fold
The fly I envy settling in the sun

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
Went wobble-wobble on the walls.

Faint odours of departed cheese,
Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,
Awoke the never-ending sneeze.

Strange pictures decked the arras drear,
Strange characters of woe and fear,
The humbugs of the social sphere.

One showed a vain and noisy prig,
That shouted empty words and big
At him that nodded in a wig.

And one, a dotard grim and gray,
Who wasteth childhood's happy day
In work more profitless than play.

Ibring you the scent of the earth on my body,
The smell of the leaves in my hair;
I come with the wind and the water upon me,
And never a care!

I been walking all day
and all night too
I been walking all day
and all night too
'Cause my meal-ticket woman have quit me
and I can't find no work to do

I picken up the news paper
and I looked in the ads
Says I picken up the news paper
and I looken in the ads
And the policeman come along
and he arrested me for vag

(Now, boys, you ought to see me in my black and white suit

It won't do.)

I said, Judge,
Judge, what may be my fine?
Lord I say Judge,
Judge, what may be my fine?
He said, Get your pick and shovel

I been drifting and
rolling along
the road

Looking
for my room and board

Like a log I've
been jammed on
the bank
So hungry
I've grew lean and lank

Get me a pick and
shovel, dig down
in the ground
Gonna keep on
digging till the blues come down

Mmmmmmmmmm mmmmmm mmmm
Mmmmmm mmmmmm
Mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm

I've got the blues
for my sweet man
in jail
Now and the judge
won't let me go his bail

I've been rolling and
drifting from shore
to shore

Gonna fix it
so I won't have to drift no more

I am living more alone now than I did;
This life tends inward, as the body ages;
And what is left of its strange book to read
Quickens in interest with the last few pages.

Problems abound. Its authorship? A sequel?
Its hero-villain, whose ways so little mend?
The plot? still dark. The style? a shade unequal.
And what of the dénouement? And, the end?

No, no, have done! Lay the thumbed thing aside;
Forget its horrors, folly, incitements, lies;
In silence and in solitude abide,
And con what yet may bless your inward eyes.

Iam all bent to glean the golden ore
Little by little from the river-bed;
Hoping the day to see
When Crœsus shall be conquered in my store.
Therefore, still sifting where the sands are spread,
I labour patiently:
Till, thus intent on this thing and no more,—
If to a vein of silver I were led,
It scarce could gladden me.
And, seeing that no joy's so warm i' the core
As this whereby the heart is comforted
And the desire set free,—
Therefore thy bitter love is still my scope,
Lady, from whom it is my life's sore theme