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THE TREE-TOAD

I.

SECLUDED, solitary on some underbough,
  Or cradled in a leaf, ’mid glimmering light,
Like Puck thou crouchest: haply watching how
  The slow toadstool comes bulging, moony white,
  Through loosening loam; or how, against the night,
The glowworm gathers silver to endow
  The darkness with; or how the dew conspires
  To hang at dusk with lamps of chilly fires
        Each blade that shrivels now.
				
II. O vague confederate of the whippoorwill, Of owl and cricket and the katydid! Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrill Vibrating note and send’st it where, half hid In cedars, twilight sleeps—each azure lid Drooping a line of golden eyeball still. Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voice Within the Garden of the Hours a-poise On dusk’s deep daffodil.
Madison Cawein [1865-1914]