Classic Poem

When the musical, piping frogs
Begin to croak and chant,
In the marshes and in the bogs,
In many a sweet spring haunt:

I think of the legend, hoary,
Which little Dutch folk recite, —
How the nightingale's soul, says the story,
Enters a frog in its flight.

And so when I hear the weird catch,
Where the frogs alone take part,
I fancy I sometimes snatch
A strain from the nightingale's heart.