High summer Noon! Yon crow of all his kind
Stands indefatigably impudent--
A vigilant scout upon a battlement
Of his vast fortress. Underneath him wind
The water-courses--open, unconfined
To his down-peering eye. Improvident
The bare fields lie in swart abandonment;
The hills their tresses thoughtlessly unbind
Of fluent silver, carelessly displayed;
And all the pastures in their morn attire
Of flowery robes most gorgeously arrayed
Shrink now too late beore the noonday's fire.
Thus unthrift Earth her dainty bosom bares,
And on her nakedness heaven's bold eye stares.