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Two Songs
II—Down-a-down
Foxes peeped from out their dens,
Day grew pale and olden;
Blackbirds, willow-warblers, wrens,
Staunched their voices golden.
High, oh high, from the opal sky,
Shouting against the dark,
"Why, why, why must the day go by?"
Fell a passionate lark.
But the cuckoos beat their brazen gongs,
Sounding, sounding so;
And the nightingales poured in starry songs
A galaxy below.
Slowly tolling the vesper bell
Ushered the stately night.
Down-a-down in a hawthorn dell
A boy and a girl and love's delight.
