We, while the world goes on its road
eat out our hearts, and double is our torment,
because it moves, because it moves so slowly.
So, when the lumb’ring waggon passes by
the cottage, and the heavy dray-horse
imprints the soil with thudding hoofs,
the dog springs from the hedgerow, swift as wind,
runs after it, before it; whines and bays.
The waggon has passed onward slowly, slowly;
the dog comes sneezing back to the farm-yard.
“_In the Country_” includes eighteen charming little pieces in which
the precision of the poet’s wording reveals itself with striking
clearness. One tiny picture we may translate. Each object in it is
distinct; and a feeling of aerial perspective is given to it by the
long-drawn notes of the _stornello_ which are suggested at its close.