Sonnet LIII. August.

FAR Off among the fields and meadow rills
The August noon bends o'er a world of green.
In the blue sky the white clouds pause, and lean
To paint broad shadows on the wooded hills
And upland farms. A brooding silence fills
The languid hours. No living forms are seen
Save birds and insects. Here and there, between
The broad boughs and the grass, the locust trills
Unseen his long-drawn, slumberous monotone.
The sparrow and the lonely phœbe-bird,
Now near, now far, across the fields are heard;
And close beside me here that Spanish drone,
The dancing grasshopper, whom no trouble frets,
In the hot sunshine snaps his castanets.