A little while the revellers
Shall flame and flaunt and have their day,
And then will come the messengers
Who travel on a cloudy way.
And after them a form of light,
A sense of iron in the air,
Upon the pulse a touch of might
And winter’s legions everywhere.
The March Orchard
UNLEAVED, undrooping, still, they stand,
This stanch and patient pilgrim band;
October robbed them of their fruit,
November stripped them to the root,
The winter smote their helplessness
With furious ire and stormy stress,
And now they seem almost to stand
In sight of Summer’s Promised Land.
Yet seen through frosty window-panes,
When bared and bound in wintry chains,
Their lightsome spirits seemed to play
With February as with May.
The snow that turned the skies afrown
Enwrapt them in the softest down,
And rains that dulled the landscape o’er
But left them livelier than before.
But now this June-like day of March
With patient strength their branches arch,
Not as unmindful of the breeze
That makes midsummer melodies,
But knowing Spring a fickle maid,
And that rough days must dawn and fade
Before, all blossoming bright, they stand
In sight of Summer’s Promised Land.
The Blind Man
THE blind man at his window bars
Stands in the morning dewy dim;
The lily-footed dawn, the stars
That wait for it, are naught to him.