A sound of some great burden
  That lay on the world’s dark breast,
Of the old, and the sick, and the lonely,
  And the weary that cried for rest.

I strayed through the midst of the city
  Like one distracted or mad. 
“Oh, Life!  Oh, Life!” I kept saying,
  And the very word seemed sad.

I passed through the gates of the city,
  And I heard the small birds sing,
I laid me down in the meadows
  Afar from the bell-ringing.

In the depth and the bloom of the meadows
  I lay on the earth’s quiet breast,
The poplar fanned me with shadows,
  And the veery sang me to rest.

Blue, blue was the heaven above me,
  And the earth green at my feet;
“Oh, Life!  Oh, Life!” I kept saying,
  And the very word seemed sweet.

WITH THE NIGHT

O doubts, dull passions, and base fears,
  That harassed and oppressed the day,
Ye poor remorses and vain tears,
  That shook this house of clay: 

All heaven to the western bars
  Is glittering with the darker dawn;
Here with the earth, the night, the stars,
  Ye have no place:  begone!

JUNE

Long, long ago, it seems, this summer morn
    That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread
    Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed
Woke the arbutus with her silver horn;
    And now May, too, is fled,
The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May,
    With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet,
Leaving the woods and all cool gardens gay
    With tulips and the scented violet.

Gone are the wind-flower and the adder-tongue
    And the sad drooping bellwort, and no more
    The snowy trilliums crowd the forest’s floor;
The purpling grasses are no longer young,
        And summer’s wide-set door
O’er the thronged hills and the broad panting earth
    Lets in the torrent of the later bloom,
Haytime, and harvest, and the after mirth,
    The slow soft rain, the rushing thunder plume.

All day in garden alleys moist and dim,
    The humid air is burdened with the rose;
    In moss-deep woods the creamy orchid blows;
And now the vesper-sparrows’ pealing hymn
        From every orchard close
At eve comes flooding rich and silvery;
    The daisies in great meadows swing and shine;
And with the wind a sound as of the sea
    Roars in the maples and the topmost pine.

High in the hills the solitary thrush
    Tunes magically his music of fine dreams,
    In briary dells, by boulder-broken streams;
And wide and far on nebulous fields aflush
        The mellow morning gleams. 
The orange cone-flowers purple-bossed are there,
    The meadow’s bold-eyed gypsies deep of hue,
And slender hawkweed tall and softly fair,
    And rosy tops of fleabane veiled with dew.