It seems, of crystal fallen there.
And now the wind sweeps through the wood
With sighings, and the solitude
Seems shaken with a mighty care.
Decay and melancholy drape
The near-by hills in mysteries
Of mist, through which the rocks and trees
Loom, hazy, each a phantom shape.
To sullenness the surly crow
All his derisive being yields,
And o’er the barren stubble-fields
Flaps, cawless, wrapped in hungry woe.
II
Evening
As eve comes on the teasel stoops
Its spike-crowned cone before the blast:
The tattered leaves drive whirling past
In frantic and fantastic troops.
The matted elder-copses sigh;
Their broad, blue combs, with berries weighed,
Like heavy pendulums are swayed
With every gust that wanders by.
Through broken walls of tangled brier,
That hedge the lane, the sumachs thrust
Their scarlet torches, red as rust,
Lit with the sunset’s stolid fire.
The eve is here: Cold, hard, and drear
The cloudless west with livid white
Of flaming silver walls the night
Far as one star’s thin rays appear.
Wedged ’thwart the west’s white luridness
The wild geese wing; from roseless domes
The far “honk” of the leader comes
Lonely and harsh and colorless.
The west dies down; and in its cup,
Shadow on shadow, pours the night;
The east glows with a mystic light;
The stars are keen; the moon comes up.