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 child, 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.