To snuff a cooler air; their slender feet Impatient stamping at the teasing flies; While o’er their heads the branching antlers spread, A mocking skeleton of shade! A fawn, Proud of his dappled coat, played here and there, Regardless of repose; the silver bell, That tinkled from a band of broidered silk, Proclaiming him a petted favorite. Save him alone, all things in view sought rest, And wearied Nature seemed to yield the strife, And smold’ring wait her speedy sacrifice. The heat grew hotter as I watched its work, And with its fervor overcome, I rose, And through the grounds, towards an orchard bent My faltering steps in full despair of ease. Down through the lengthened rows of laden trees, Whose golden-freighted boughs o’erlapped the way, I hurried till I reached the last confines. Here stood a gnarléd veteran, now too old To bear much fruit, but weaving with its leaves So dense a shade, the smallest fleck of sun Could not creep through. Beneath it spread a couch Of velvet moss, fit for the slumbers of a king. Here prone I fell, at last amid a scene That promised refuge from the glaring heat. Beyond me stretched the orchard’s canopy Of thick, rank foliage, almost drooping down Upon the green plush carpet underneath. Close at my feet a crystal spring burst forth, And rolled its gurgling waters down the glade Now spreading in a rilling silver sheet O’er some broad rock, then gath’ring at its base Into a foamy pool that churned the sand, And mingling sparks of shining isinglass, It danced away o’er gleamy, pebbly bed, Where, midst the grassy nooks and fibrous roots, The darting minnows played at hide and seek, Oft fluttering upwards, to the top, to spit A tiny bubble out, or slyly snap Th’ unwary little insect hov’ring near; Till, by its tributes widened to a brook, It poured its limpid waters undefiled In to the river’s dun and dirty waves,-- A type of childhood’s guileless purity, That mingling with the sordid world is lost.