A Day for Wandering

I set apart a day for wandering; I heard the woodlands ring, The hidden white-throat sing, And the harmonic West, Beyond a far hill-crest, Touch its Aeolian string. Remote from all the brawl and bruit of men, The iron tongue of Trade, I followed the clear calling of a wren Deep to the bosom of a sheltered glade, Where interwoven branches spread a shade Of soft cool beryl like the evening seas Unruffled by the breeze. And there—and there— I watched the maiden-hair, The pale blue iris-grass, The water-spider in its pause and pass Upon a pool that like a mirror was. I took for confidant The diligent ant Threading the clover and the sorrel aisles; For me were all the smiles Of the sequestered blossoms there abloom— Chalice and crown and plume; I drank the ripe rich attars blurred and blent, And won—Content!