THINK me not unkind and rude that I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood to fetch his word to men.
Tax not my sloth that I fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky writes a letter in my book.
Chide me not, laborious band, for the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand goes home loaded with a thought.
There was never mystery but ’tis figured in the flowers;
Was never secret history but birds tell it in the bowers.
One harvest from thy field homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield, which I gather in a song.
