Like a hard cruel lash the long lean winds
are laid on the back of the land,
Curling over the breast of the hills and cutting
the feet of the plain,
Till the naked limbs of the forest host cringe
at the lift of the hand,
And the white-ribbed waves on the granite shore
moan and sob in their pain.
Never a sail on that sharp straight line
that marks the steel of the sky;
Never a wing flees in from death to crouch
in the rattling reeds;
In the shaggy heads of the black coast pines
the frozen spume drives high;
And even the hand of the leering sun lies cold
on the tattered weeds.
A month ago and the warm winds ran over the stalks
of gold,
With the grass-heads wet in the morning mists
and the daisies topped with bees;
And now the last of the year lies dead,
the world walks bent, and old,
And only the bitter lash of the wind sweeps
in from the iron seas.
Dead Days
The haws cling to the thorn,
Shrivelled and red;
The limbs long dead
Clutch at a leaf long torn—
It taps all day on the spikes
As the spume licks over the dikes.
The reeds creak in the dawn
By the dead pond;
Dry tongues respond
From grasses yellow and drawn;
And ever scourged by the wind,
The alders clatter and grind.
Vines furred with the frost
String from the wall:
Their bones recall
Summer leaves long lost,
Cricket and fly and bee
And their low melody.
No bird wails to the waste
Of scentless snow,
Where streaming low
The steel-blue shadows haste;
But through the hard night
The dead moon takes flight
The Winter Harvest
Between the blackened curbs lie stacked the
harvest of the skies,
Long lines of frozen, grimy cocks befouled
by city feet;
On either side the racing throngs, the crowding
cliffs, the cries,
And ceaseless winds that eddy down to whip
the iron street.