I WOULD flee from the city's rule and law, From its fashion and form cut loose, And go where the strawberry grows on its straw, And the gooseberry on its goose; Where the catnip tree is climbed by the cat As she crouches for her prey -- The guileless and unsuspecting rat On the rattan bush at play. I will watch at ease for the saffron cow And the cowlet in their glee, As they leap in joy from bough to bough On the top of the cowslip tree; Where the musical partridge drums on his drum, And the dog devours the dogwood plum And the wood chuck chucks his wood, In the primitive solitude. And then to the whitewashed dairy I'll turn, Where the dairymaid hastening hies, Her ruddy and golden-haired butter to churn From the milk of her butterflies; And I'll rise at morn with the early bird, To the fragrant farm-yard pass, When the farmer turns his beautiful herd Of grasshoppers out to grass. |