Songs of the Fields 



it did on the bed of ooze; for in the firm clay soil 

 of fields and meadows only a narrow channel is 

 cut, and so with forces renewed by concentration Where 

 it comes slipping across Bone's woods pasture. theCreek 

 Through his fields, always tree-shaded, it flows, 

 and then crosses farms whose owners I am glad 

 I do not know; for here my creek is robbed of 

 shelter, and left to spread ineffectually, and to 

 evaporate in fetid, unwholesome pools. The trees 

 are cut, and grazing stock by wading everywhere 

 trample down the banks and fill the channel with 

 soil; thus wantonly wasting water that in a few 

 more years these land-ow y ners will be digging 

 ditches to reclaim. With broken heart it is dissi- 

 pated by the sun, and a dry sob of agony is the 

 only note raised as it painfully oozes across this 

 land and beneath the road bridge. 



Here the creek reaches deep-shaded channel 

 once more, and bursts into song crossing Arman- 

 trout's pasture; for it is partly shaded, though 

 many large trees on the banks are being felled. 

 A happy song is sung on the Rayn farm, where 

 it is sheltered by trees and a big hill. In full 

 force it crosses the road again, slides below the 

 railroad bridge, rounds the hill, chanting a requiem 

 to the little city of the dead on its banks, flows 

 through the upper corner of the old Limberlost 

 swamp, hurries across the road once more, and so 

 comes singing into Schaffer's meadow. 

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