Summer Sanctuary

Not upon the crowded beaches
  Where the sun beats fierce and hot;
Not upon the river reaches
  In a shady silvan spot;
But in some deep mountain valley,
  'Mid the sassafras and fern,
Here's the place where I would dally
  When the suns of Summer burn.

Here the sifted sunlight dappling
  Carpets with translucent green,
Flecks and flirts on fern and sapling,
  Where the cold stream peeps between.
"Here," you muse, "since time's beginning,
  Foot of man has never known;
Mine the joy first to be winning
  All this beauty for my own."

"Here," you muse, "is safe seclusion
  Known alone to bee and bird,
From the rude unsought intrusion
  Of the common human herd." . . .
Then a lipstick grossly gleaming,
  And a half-smoked fag you see;
And you waken from your dreaming
  As a shrill voice yells "Coo-ee!"