Page:Poems of nature, Thoreau, 1895.djvu/103

Rh Like sentries that by slow degrees

Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.

And as the year doth decline,

The sun allows a scantier light;

Behind each needle of the pine

There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.

I hear the cricket's slumbrous lay

Around, beneath me, and on high;

It rocks the night, it soothes the day,

And everywhere is Nature's lullaby.

But most he chirps beneath the sod,

When he has made his winter bed;

His creak grown fainter but more broad,

A film of autumn o'er the summer spread.