Classic Poem

The desert murmurs to the sun a strange murmur
As a whisper of a bride to the bridegroom.
Larks are telling a triumph;
Magpies are screaming their summons,
And finches in wild-rose thicket recite delicate poems.
Brooks commune with their pebbled floors,
Tricking the May-flies to a gauzy dance,
And warbling to mouth-dripping kine
Music of pastures,
Of minty beds and purple bergamot.
I will go where the little rivers
Are calling almost impatiently,
" Lie down by our hurrying.
" Rest ye beside us.
" Let us whisper to you of our eternity,
" Soothing your ears with our legends.
" You are for a moment, but we are forever.
" Chattering, laughing, brawling,
" Intoning our invocation.
" We are of the Past and of the Future.
" You creep back into Earth and are gone;
" But we will soothe the ears of your children forever. "

My ears are awake to the music of the morning.
I hear the pied yellow hammer beating on the barn gable;
Drumming to drowsy Summer.
Hid marsh-wrens trill restlessly in the tules;
Making a gay noise, chirping and twittering.
From somewhere the voice of a white-crowned sparrow.
And, further off, near the irrigation-ditch,
Where the top of a poplar is lighted as a candle,
An oriole empties his heart, lest it break.