SOMEWHERE there’s a willow budding
In a hollow by the river,
Where the autumn leaves lie sodden,
Turning all the pool to brown;
There’s a thrush who’s building early,
With his feathers all a-shiver,
And the maple sap is rising—
But I’m glad that I’m in town.
Somewhere out there in the country
There’s a brook that’s overflowing,
And a quaker pussy-willow
Sews grey velvet on her gown;
Rushes whisper to each other
That marsh marigolds are showing,
And those saucy crocus fellows—
But I’m glad that I’m in town.
Long ago, when we were younger,
How those little things enthralled us;
King-birds nesting in the hedges,
Baby field-mice soft as down,
Muskrats in the sun-warmed shallows—
Strange how all these voices called us!—
Hark, was that a robin singing?
When’s the next train out of town?
Summer’s Passing
A SINGLE branch of flaming red,
A branch of tawny yellow
And every branch in gorgeousness
A rival of its fellow;
Some russet brown and faded green
With golden shadows in between
And mist-hid sun to mellow.
An instinct as of music near—
A breath the wind is bringing,
Broken and sweet, as from a host
Of swift and solemn winging—
A mystery born of light and sound
Wrapping our trancéd progress round—
A sighing and a singing!
Thus in a certain lovely pomp
We leave the Summer lying—
These are her funeral banners, this
The pageantry of dying!
The music that we almost hear
Is wafted from her passing bier—
The singing and the sighing!
The Doom of Ys
DO you hear the bell? ’Tis a silver chime
But it ringeth not in the bourne of time.
With the wind it swells, with the wind ’twill sink,
Dying at last by the sea’s dim brink.