How often have I started out With no thought in my noodle, And wandered here and there about, Where fancy bade me toddle; Till feeling faunlike in my glee I've voiced some gay distiches, Returning joyfully to tea, A poem in my britches. A-squatting on a thymy slope With vast of sky about me, I've scribbled on an envelope The rhymes the hills would shout me; The couplets that the trees would call, The lays the breezes proffered . . . Oh no, I didn't think at all - I took what Nature offered. For that's the way you ought to write - Without a trace of trouble; Be super-charged with high delight And let the words out-bubble; Be voice of vale and wood and stream Without design or proem: Then rouse from out a golden dream To find you've made a poem. So I'll go forth with mind a blank, And sea and sky will spell me; And lolling on a thymy bank I'll take down what they tell me; As Mother Nature speaks to me Her words I'll gaily docket, So I'll come singing home to tea A poem in my pocket.