“The hollow winds begin to blow, The clouds look black, the glass is low; The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, And spiders from their cobwebs peep: Last night the sun went pale to bed, The moon in halos hid her head: The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, For, see! a rainbow spans the sky: The walls are damp, the ditches smell, Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel; Hark! how the chairs and tables crack; Old Betty’s joints are on the rack; Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, The distant hills are seeming nigh. How restless are the snorting swine,— The busy flies disturb the kine. Low o’er the grass the swallow wings; The cricket, too, how loud it sings: Puss on the hearth with velvet paws, Sits smoothing o’er her whisker’d jaws. Through the clear stream the fishes rise, And nimbly catch the incautious flies: The sheep were seen at early light Cropping the meads with eager bite. Though June, the air is cold and chill; The mellow blackbird’s voice is still. The glow-worms, numerous and bright, Illum’d the dewy dell last night. At dusk the squalid toad was seen, Hopping, and crawling o’er the green. The frog has lost his yellow vest, And in a dingy suit is dressed. The leech, disturb’d, is newly risen, Quite to the summit of his prison. The whirling winds the dust obeys, And in the rapid eddy plays; My dog, so alter’d in his taste, Quits mutton-bones on grass to feast; And see yon rooks, how odd their flight! They imitate the gliding kite, Or seem precipitate to fall, As if they felt the piercing ball:— ’Twill surely rain,—I see with sorrow, Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.”