Now straying beams from day's unclosing eye In copper-coloured patches flush the sky, And from night's prison strugglingly encroach, To bring the summons of warm day's approach, Till, slowly mounting oer the ridge of clouds That yet half shows his face, and half enshrouds, The unfettered sun takes his unbounded reign And wakes all life to noise and toil again: And while his opening mellows oer the scenes Of wood and field their many mingling greens, Industry's bustling din once more devours The soothing peace of morning's early hours: The grunt of hogs freed from their nightly dens And constant cacklings of new-laying hens, And ducks and geese that clamorous joys repeat The splashing comforts of the pond to meet, And chirping sparrows dropping from the eaves For offal kernels that the poultry leaves, Oft signal-calls of danger chittering high At skulking cats and dogs approaching nigh. And lowing steers that hollow echoes wake Around the yard, their nightly fast to break, As from each barn the lumping flail rebounds In mingling concert with the rural sounds; While oer the distant fields more faintly creep The murmuring bleatings of unfolding sheep, And ploughman's callings that more hoarse proceed Where industry still urges labour's speed, The bellowing of cows with udders full That wait the welcome halloo of "come mull," And rumbling waggons deafening again, Rousing the dust along the narrow lane, And cracking whips, and shepherd's hooting cries, From woodland echoes urging sharp replies. Hodge, in his waggon, marks the wondrous tongue, And talks with echo as he drives along; Still cracks his whip, bawls every horse's name, And echo still as ready bawls the same: The puzzling mystery he would gladly cheat, And fain would utter what it can't repeat, Till speedless trials prove the doubted elf As skilled in noise and sounds as Hodge himself; And, quite convinced with the proofs it gives, The boy drives on and fancies echo lives, Like some wood-fiend that frights benighted men, The troubling spirit of a robber's den.