The Tree-Toad

I     Secluded, solitary on some underbough,     Or cradled in a leaf, 'mid glimmering light,     Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching how     The slow toadstool comes bulging, moony white,     Through loosening loam; or how, against the night,     The glowworm gathers silver to endow     The darkness with; or how the dew conspires     To hang, at dusk, with lamps of chilly fires     Each blade that shrivels now. II     O vague confederate of the whippoorwill,     Of owl and cricket and the katydid!     Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrill     Vibrating note and send'st it where, half hid     In cedars, twilight sleeps - each azure lid     Drooping a line of golden eyeball still. -     Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voice     Within the Garden of the Hours apoise     On dusk's deep daffodil. III     Minstrel of moisture! silent when high noon     Shows her tanned face among the thirsting clover     And parching meadows, thy tenebrious tune     Wakes with the dew or when the rain is over.     Thou troubadour of wetness and damp lover     Of all cool things! admitted comrade boon     Of twilight's hush, and little intimate     Of eve's first fluttering star and delicate     Round rim of rainy moon! IV     Art trumpeter of Dwarfland? does thy horn     Inform the gnomes and goblins of the hour     When they may gambol under haw and thorn,     Straddling each winking web and twinkling flower?     Or bell-ringer of Elfland? whose tall tower     The liriodendron is? from whence is borne     The elfin music of thy bell's deep bass,     To summon Faeries to their starlit maze,     To summon them or warn.