MINSTRELS OF THE NIGHT
Woodlandvoices I have heard—Laughing waters, beast and bird;Red-squirrels jabb’ring while they eat,Cones a-dropping at your feet;Pecker diving for a worm,Ringing echoes with each squirm;Squawking jays and the palaverOf a pheasant breaking cover;But the strangest sound to meComes when winds blow fitfully,In the darkness, like a moan—Chilling to the marrow-bone,Dying now upon the galeLike a far-off cougar’s wail.Now it rises—peevish, wild,Like the fretting of a child;With an easing wind the thingSqueaks like monkeys jibbering.Thus a leaning, scraping treeSounds its spookish minstrelsy,When the night-wind, teasing so,Starts it rocking to and fro.
Woodlandvoices I have heard—Laughing waters, beast and bird;Red-squirrels jabb’ring while they eat,Cones a-dropping at your feet;Pecker diving for a worm,Ringing echoes with each squirm;Squawking jays and the palaverOf a pheasant breaking cover;But the strangest sound to meComes when winds blow fitfully,In the darkness, like a moan—Chilling to the marrow-bone,Dying now upon the galeLike a far-off cougar’s wail.Now it rises—peevish, wild,Like the fretting of a child;With an easing wind the thingSqueaks like monkeys jibbering.Thus a leaning, scraping treeSounds its spookish minstrelsy,When the night-wind, teasing so,Starts it rocking to and fro.
Woodlandvoices I have heard—Laughing waters, beast and bird;Red-squirrels jabb’ring while they eat,Cones a-dropping at your feet;Pecker diving for a worm,Ringing echoes with each squirm;Squawking jays and the palaverOf a pheasant breaking cover;But the strangest sound to meComes when winds blow fitfully,In the darkness, like a moan—Chilling to the marrow-bone,Dying now upon the galeLike a far-off cougar’s wail.Now it rises—peevish, wild,Like the fretting of a child;With an easing wind the thingSqueaks like monkeys jibbering.Thus a leaning, scraping treeSounds its spookish minstrelsy,When the night-wind, teasing so,Starts it rocking to and fro.