THE EDGE OF NIGHT 67 



Unheard all day, ascends again ; 

 Deserted is the half-mown plain, 

 Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, 

 The mower's cry, the dog's alarms 

 All housed within the sleeping farms! 

 The business of the day is done, 

 The last-left haymaker is gone. 

 And from the thyme upon the height 

 And from the elder-blossom white 

 And pale dog-roses in the hedge, 

 And from the mint-plant in the sedge, 

 In puffs of balm the night-air blows 

 The perfume which the day foregoes. 



I would call it poetry, if it were poetry. And it is 

 poetry, yet it is a great deal more. It is poetry 

 and owls and sour apples and toads ; for in this 

 particular old apple dwells also a tree-toad. 



It is curious enough, as the summer dusk 

 comes on, to see the round face of the owl in 

 one hole, and out of another in the broken 

 limb above, the flat weazened face of the tree- 

 toad. Philosophic countenances they are, masked 

 with wisdom, both of them : shrewd and pene- 

 trating that of the slit-eyed owl ; contemplative 

 and soaring in its serene composure the counte- 

 nance of the transcendental toad. Both creatures 



