Читать книгу Blooms of the Berry - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 21

The hoar-frost hisses 'neath the feet,

And the worm-fence's straggling length,

Smote by the morning's slanted strength,

Sparkles one rib of virgin sleet.

To withered fields the crisp breeze talks,

And silently and sadly lifts

The bronz'd leaves from the beech and drifts

Them wadded down the woodland walks.

Reluctantly and one by one

The worthless leaves sift slowly down,

And thro' the mournful vistas blown

Drop rustling, and their rest is won.

Where stands the brook beneath its fall,

Thin-scaled with ice the pool is bound,

And on the pebbles scattered 'round

The ooze is frozen; one and all

White as rare crystals shining fair.

There stirs no life: the faded wood

Mourns sighing, and the solitude

Seems shaken with a mighty care.

Decay and silence sadly drape

The vigorous limbs of oldest trees,

The rotting leaves and rocks whose knees

Are shagged with moss, with misty crape.

To sullenness the surly crow

All his derisive feeling yields,

And o'er the barren stubble-fields

Flaps cawless, wrapped in hungry woe.

The eve comes on: the teasel stoops

Its spike-crowned head before the blast;

The tattered leaves drive whirling past

Like skeletons in whistling troops.

The pithy elder copses sigh;

Their broad blue combs with berries weighed,

Like heavy pendulums are swayed

With ev'ry gust that hurries by.

Thro' matted walls of tangled brier

That hedge the lane, the sumachs thrust

Their scarlet torches red as rust,

Burning with flames of stolid fire.

The evening's here – cold, hard, and drear;

The lavish West with bullion bright

Of molten silver walls the night

Far as one star's thin rays appear.

Wedged toward the West's cold luridness

The wild geese fly 'neath roseless domes;

The wild cry of the leader comes

Distant and harsh with loneliness.

The pale West dies, and in its cup

Bubble on bubble pours the night:

The East glows with a mystic light;

The stars are keen; the moon is up.