Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE COMMON EARTH Sounds of children at their play, Laughter dropping young and clear As dew from out the flowers of May: Murmured songs and wings in flight, When Summer takes with warmth the year: Far off thunder, never near, Dreamy with a strange delight, Drowsy with a thrill of fear, And the sound of rain at night — All are pleasant to the ear. — Then the wood-bird's plaintive call Overhead at evenfall: Insects singing in the weeds When the dusk is blue and still, And the full moon breasts the hill Like a sylvan from her rill; And the wind among the reeds Whispers, and they stir and fill Silence with a glimmering sound As of spirit things around, Twinkling mist-like o'er the meads, Spilling earth with dewy beads: Mellow music of the frog, Where the night her elf-lights leads, — Faeryland and dreams ajog With their torches, drums and reeds, Dancing over brook and bog: Or where waters, bright with moon, Sigh of sleep a faery tune, Dreamy stir of boughs of June. — These are pleasant to the ear, Common ear; Things the Earth's old heart holds dear. The face of one we love near by, And friendship's smile to which we cleave Through life's long mutability, Are pleasant to the eye. — Gold-flickerings on an August eve In one rose-cloud the day may leave, In dominating majesty, Constant in its inconstancy, To hold the sunset and one star, — A lamp a sylphid swings afar In caverns dim of porphyry, Or grottoes pale of airy pearl; — How pleasant to the eye! — Cloud-Alps whose battlements unfurl Heat-lightnings; and along which fly The colors of a quiet sky, That lift the thought to things on high, Beyond this world that we perceive; And wa...