I

To-night, perhaps, after the rain is done, Led by a moonbeam or the flickering torch The firefly flares, amid the loneliness, The hereditary loneliness of the trees, I, too, may see,--as sees the star that peeps Through interlacing boughs, the toadstools heave Their white roofs through the ferns, like goblin huts, An elfin town; and, squatting on their tops, Punch-bellied things, peak-kneed, their knees up-drawn To perpendicular eyes of glow-worm flame, And arms akimbo i' the light o' the moon, Watching the dew-drops tag the toadstools' rims, Or from the mushroom roll the orbéd rain: Or, where the tall weed drips and spunkwood smells Make musk the underwoods, slim woodland imps,-- Snail-eyed, frog-footed,--oust the sleeping bees From rocking cradles of the wild flowers' bells Belfrying, with foxglove-purple, a moonbeam space.