A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides -
You may have met him,—did you not?
His notice sudden is -

The grass divides as with a comb
A spotted shaft is seen
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on -

He likes a boggy acre -
A floor too cool for corn -
Yet when a boy, and barefoot
I more than once, at morn
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun
When, stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone -

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality

But never met this fellow
Attended or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And zero at the bone