A FROLIC WITH NATURE

Come Fanny & Jenny, come Johnny & Will,
There’s a dance in the valley & away on the hill, 
Hurrah, ha, ha! how the grasses in the meadows
Are whirling with the curling of their own wind-shadows.
With a totter & a quiver is the water in the river
Giving ever to deliver its wane to the pines,
The rumbling & tumbling & grumbling sea,
The hungry, monotonous, glutinous sea!

The hollow winds come with a hum, like a drone,
And cover the valley of clover all over
With flocks of billows like brindled herds
That go with a low round, moving slow;
And rocked with a motive too dreamy for words
Multitudinous bees swing, fluting at ease,
    In hammocks of roses
    And lilies & posies,
That Poets feed on with their eyes & their noses, –
    Or far from their bonny homes
    Beating their funny drums,

Suck from the sunny blooms
Stock for their honey-combs,
Busy & buzzy, & fussy if Johnny comes
Dashing to rash in their irritable company;
Ha’pening, clap an eye there if you jump any!

    Trees of the wildwood
    Are merry as childhood,
Clapping their million hands all of a quiver,
Flashing & flowing as was ever a river.
    Fluttering & twittering,
    Glittering & littering,
Birds in the leaves are the voice of the wood,
    Uttering their melodies
    Their jollities & well-a-days,
All understood by the sympathy of mood
In the mind of the listener who hears as he should.

    Tremulous with happiness,
    Full of new sappiness,
Rustles the foliage close overlapping us;
    Stirred with a pattering
    Sound, like scattering
Rain-drops over us silverly clattering.
    Snowed through the trees
    By the ripple of the breeze,
The sunshine’s yellow flakes sprinkle the ground;
Silent little dancers, glancers, prancers,
Whirl, twirl, dart, part, fluttering around,
Like golden winged butterflies at play without a sound!

Now for our dance with the leaves & the grasses here;
“Pass us your glasses here! O for Agassiz here,
Such a dear beetle that none can surpass is here!”
Never Mind a bug, Boys! skip with the lasses here!
Johnny, my own pea-sun needn’t have a botany!
Fanny, that thistle don’t open so cottony;
    Beetles & Botany
    Lend to monotony,
Leave them today for what boy hasn’t got any!
Skip for an hour with the merry summer revellers,
    For from the frivolous
    Caviliers, drivelers
Travellers, snivelers, drones who would baffle us;
Combed by the trees, with the breeze to dishevel us,
    Wholly & jollity
    Of a pure quality
Let us resign us, though grimacing gravities
Snuff it as folly, too solemn to laugh at us!

The birds & the breeze, 
    And the squirrels in the trees,
And the twinkle on the wrinkle
    Of the little mock seas,
Where the brook to her play-house drops with a tinkle,
    And that shy Little Rabbit,
    (“Ha don’t try to grab it!”)
And all the wee means to whom pleasure is a habit,
    Are out for a jolly good time!
    And our fun with this fun shall rhyme,
        Though all the odd brows should blab it
        To all the old Owls as a crime!