Ages are past; as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiences of the life that is in Nature are in time veritably future; or rather outside to time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never die.
OUR NEIGHBORS
The respectable folks,
Where dwell they?
They whisper in the oaks,
And they sigh in the hay,
Summer and winter, night and day,
Out on the meadow, there dwell they.
They drink at the brooks and the pilgrim's cup,[1]
And with the owl and the nighthawk sup;
They suck the breath of the morning wind,
And they make their own all the good they find.
They never die,
Nor snivel nor cry,
For they have a lease of immortality.
A sound estate forever they mend,
To every asker readily lend,
To the ocean, wealth,
To the meadow, health,
To Time, his length,
To the rocks, strength,
- ↑ The four lines in italics are struck out by the author in the original.
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