THE fierce white sun; the stinging water-smells;
The odor of magnolias, drowsing-sweet;
The pipe of noonday frogs; the tweet-tweet-tweet
Of lesser birds like mingling silver bells;
The hothouse air of dripping sphagnum-dells,
The crumbling roots beneath one’s crushing feet;
The disappearing snake’s tail; through the heat,
The crow’s note overhead that scolds and yells;
The click of axes where tall cedars throng;
The wind that roars like some wild railway train
Above the pines, yet spins to gnatlike song
Beside some sleeper’s ear, the loose, clean sand;
For your sole sake, before they pass again,
I set them down, — misprized, belovèd land!