The Poet's Song

The rain had fallen; the Poet arose;
   He passed by the town, and out of the street.
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,
   And waves of shadow went over the wheat,
And he set him down in a lonely place,
   And chanted a melody loud and sweet,
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud,
   And the lark drop down at his feet.

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,
   The snake slipt under a spray,
The hawk stood with the down on his beak
   And stared, with his foot on the prey,
And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs,
   But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
   When the years have died away."