Читать книгу One Day & Another: A Lyrical Eclogue - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 21

The cricket in the rose-bush hedge

Sings by the vine-entangled gate;

The slim moon slants a timid edge

Of pearl through one low cloud of slate;

Around dark door and window-ledge

Like dreams the shadows wait.

And through the summer dusk she goes,

On her white breast a crimson rose.

Gray skies and the foggy rain

Dripping from sullen eaves;

Over and over again

Dull drop of the trickling leaves;

And the woodward-winding lane,

And the hill with its shocks of sheaves

One scarce perceives.

Shall I go in such wet weather

By the lane or over the hill? —

Where the blossoming milkweed's feather

The drops like diamonds fill;

Where, draggled and drenched together,

The ox-eyes rank the rill,

To the old corn-mill.

The creek by now is swollen,

And its foaming cascades sound;

And the lilies, smeared with pollen,

In the dam look dull and drowned.

'Tis a path I oft have stolen

To the bridge that rambles round

With willows bound.

Through a valley wild with berry,

Packed thick with the iron-weeds,

And elder, – washed and very

Fragrant, – the fenced path leads;

Past oak and wilding cherry

To a place of flags and reeds,

That the water bredes.

The sun through the sad sky bleaches —

Is that a thrush that calls?

That bird who so beseeches?

And see! on the balsam's balls,

And leaves of the water-beeches —

One blister of wart-like galls —

No raindrop falls.

My shawl instead of a bonnet!..

Though the woods be soaking yet,

Through the wet to the rock I'll run it, —

How sweet to meet i' the wet!

Our rock with the vine upon it, —

Each flower a fiery jet —

Where oft we've met!

How fresh the purple clover

Smells in its veil of rain!

And where the leaves brim over

How fragrant is the lane!

See, how the sodden acres,

Forlorn of all their rakers,

Their hay and harvest makers,

Look green as spring again.

Drops from the trumpet flowers

Rain on us as we pass;

And every zephyr showers,

From tilted leaf or grass,

Clear beads of moisture, seeming

Pale, pointed emeralds gleaming;

Where, through the green boughs streaming,

The daylight strikes like glass.

How dewy, clean and fragrant

Look now the green and gold! —

And breezes trailing vagrant