I

The shadows sit and stand about its door Like uninvited guests and poor; And all the long, hot summer day The ceaseless locust dins its roundelay In one old sycamore. The squirrel leaves upon its rotting roof Its wandering tracks In empty hulls; and in its clapboard cracks The spider weaves a windy woof, And cells of clay the mud-wasp packs. The she-fox whelps upon its floor; And o’er its sun warped door The owlet roosts; and where the mosses run, The freckled snake basks in the sun.