A SUMMER CAMP

THE sun is savage in sultry hollows,
The hillside quivers with pulsing heat.
With drooping wings the dusty swallows
Are dotting the fence that lines the street.

I leave the town with its hundred noises,
Its clatter and whir of wheel and steam,
For woodland quiet and silvery voices,
With a camp of bark by a crystal stream.

Oh, shrewd are the ways of town and city,
Cunning in commerce and worldly wise,
But hearts grow hardened to human pity,
And tongues slop over with thrifty lies.

Nearer to Him of the lowly manger
Is the sun-tanned forester, broad and free,
And the rugged hills in their native grandeur
Are nearer the hills of Galilee.

The feathery arms of firs and spruces
Bend over the water that sleeps beneath,
Where marish flowers by the quiet sluices
Infold their sweets in a golden sheath.

And a small canoe of airy lightness
Floats silently on the limpid stream,
Where the norland birch in snowy whiteness
O’erhangs the ripples that glance and gleam.

Oh, peaceful and sweet are forest slumbers
On a fragrant couch with the stars above,
As the free soul marches to dulcet numbers
Through dreamland valleys of light and love.

And ever at night a sylvan goddess
Glides into my camp with dance and song:
In kirtle of green and snowy bodice
She stays by my side the whole night long.

She cools my forehead with dainty fingers,
And smooths the wrinkles from brow and face
With a pitying touch that clings and lingers
About my spirit in every place.

On emerald banks thick strewn with pansies
We loiter away the dreamy days,
And she dowers my soul with sylvan fancies
That sprout and blossom in rustic lays.

Why should I envy the laureate guinea,
Or covet the muse that is held in fief?
I sing the ballads she prompts within me,
And have no spite for the greener leaf.

With luckier bards I have no quarrel,
I envy no brow its wreath of bays:
I know it is mine to miss the laurel,
And the golden sheen of the leaf that pays,

And I rest in the hope that each good fellow
Will some time dwell in another land,
Where hearts that are generous, true and mellow,
Will know each other, and understand.