Yet in the lonely ridges, wrenched with pain,
Harsh solitary hillocks, bound and dumb,
Grave glebes close-lipped beneath the scourge and chain,
Lurks hid the germ of ecstasy—the sum
Of life that waits on summer, till the rain
Whisper in April and the crocus come.
IN AN OLD BARN
Tons upon tons the brown-green fragrant hay
O’erbrims the mows beyond the time-warped eaves,
Up to the rafters where the spider weaves,
Though few flies wander his secluded way.
Through a high chink one lonely golden ray,
Wherein the dust is dancing, slants unstirred.
In the dry hush some rustlings light are heard,
Of winter-hidden mice at furtive play.
Far down, the cattle in their shadowed stalls,
Nose-deep in clover fodder’s meadowy scent,
Forget the snows that whelm their pasture streams,
The frost that bites the world beyond their walls.
Warm housed, they dream of summer, well content
In day-long contemplation of their dreams.
MIDWINTER THAW
How shrink the snows upon this upland field,
Under the dove-grey dome of brooding noon!
They shrink with soft, reluctant shocks, and soon
In sad brown ranks the furrows lie revealed.
From radiant cisterns of the frost unsealed
Now wakes through all the air a watery rune—
The babble of a million brooks atune,
In fairy conduits of blue ice concealed.
Noisy with crows, the wind-break on the hill
Counts o’er its buds for summer. In the air
Some shy foreteller prophesies with skill—
Some voyaging ghost of bird, some effluence rare;
And the stall-wearied cattle dream their fill
Of deep June pastures where the pools are fair.
THE FLIGHT OF THE GEESE
I hear the low wind wash the softening snow,
The low tide loiter down the shore. The night
Full filled with April forecast, hath no light.
The salt wave on the sedge-flat pulses slow.
Through the hid furrows lisp in murmurous flow
The thaw’s shy ministers; and hark! The height
Of heaven grows weird and loud with unseen flight
Of strong hosts prophesying as they go!
High through the drenched and hollow night their wings
Beat northward hard on winter’s trail. The sound
Of their confused and solemn voices, borne
Athwart the dark to their long Arctic morn,
Comes with a sanction and an awe profound,
A boding of unknown, foreshadowed things.