An Idyl

Upon a gnarly, knotty limb                 That fought the current's crest,              Where shocks of reeds peeped o'er the brim,                 Wild wasps had glued their nest.              And in a sprawling cypress' grot,                 Sheltered and safe from flood,              Dirt-daubers each had chosen a spot                 To shape his house of mud.              In a warm crevice of the bark                 A basking scorpion clung,              With bright blue tail and red-rimmed eyes                 And yellow, twinkling tongue.              A lunging trout flashed in the sun,                 To do some petty slaughter,              And set the spiders all a-run                 On little stilts of water.              Toward noon upon the swamp there stole                 A deep, cathedral hush,              Save where, from sun-splocht bough and bole,                 Sweet thrush replied to thrush.              An angler came to cast his fly                 Beneath a baffling tree.              I smiled, when I had caught his eye,                 And he smiled back at me.              When stretched beside a shady elm                 I watched the dozy heat,              Nature was moving in her realm,                 For I could hear her feet.