Foxes peeped from out their dens,
Day grew pale and olden;
Blackbirds, willow-warblers, wrens,
⁠Staunched their voices golden.
 
High, oh high, from the opal sky,
⁠Shouting against the dark,
"Why, why, why must the day go by?"
⁠Fell a passionate lark.

But the cuckoos beat their brazen gongs,
⁠Sounding, sounding so;
And the nightingales poured in starry songs
⁠A galaxy below.

Slowly tolling the vesper bell
⁠Ushered the stately night.
Down-a-down in a hawthorn dell
⁠A boy and a girl and love's delight.