RITUAL FOR SUMMER DEAD
August turns autumnal now:
Scarlet the sudden maple-bough
At the turn of the wood-road gleams;
On the hearth the gray log sings
Sleepy songs of vanished things—
Babbling, bubbling John-a-Dreams.
August is autumn now.
Find the field where, dead and dry,
Under the broad still noontide sky,
Bleached in the flow of the bright-blue weather,
Stalks of the milkweed stand together.
Take the pale-brown pod in hand,
Packed with seeds of silvery feather;
Wander dreaming through the land.
Let each silken plumelet sift
Through the fingers, drift and drift,
Touched with the sun to rainbow light—
Float—and float—and out of sight!
So might incense drift away.
Golden Summer is dead to-day.
As a pious thurifer
Swing the censer meet for her.