C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Henry Ames Blood (1836–1900)
From ‘Thoreau: In Memoriam’
I
With the daintiest sort of proem,
Which the poet squirrel made
On a leaf that would not fade,
And slyly hid, one darksome night,
By the wicked glow-worm’s light!
It was all about Thoreau—
How the squirrels loved him so;
Since, whenever he went walking,
He would stop to hear them talking,—
Often smiling when they chattered,
Or their brown nuts downward pattered:
Who told me once that she had heard
Robins, wrens, and others tell
How he knew their language well,
And how he turned, a thousand times,
Birdic into English rhymes!