Page:Myrtle and Myrrh.djvu/20

 Nor even the morning zephyr

That blows o'er den and bower.

Thou wouldst not be the virgin snow

Set free from yonder clouds,

Only to melt beneath the feet

Of surging human crowds."

"No! none of these," my Soul replied;

"I'll shiver ever thrall;

O let me rise, for I would be

The sky above them all."

The cricket to the corn-crake came one day,

Shivering, yet buzzing in his wanton way,

And said: "I'm slain

By hunger, brother, turn thou not from me;

'Tis winter, and I only beg of thee

A little grain."

The corn-crake grinned and said in tone sublime:

"Where wert thou hidden in the harvest time,

Thou dinning drone?

Why didst thou not come with us to the fields

To gather something for thy winter meals

Of what had grown?

"O, I was entertaining with my rhymes

The vineyards, and the fig trees, and the thymes

The summer long."

"No then," replied the corn-crake, "not a seed

Have I for such as thou; go home and feed

Upon thy Song."