The wild-rose thicket seems to be
The summer in epitome.
Amid its gold-green coverts meet
The late dew and the noonday heat;
Around it, to the sea-rim harsh,
The patient levels of the marsh;
And o’er it the pale heavens bent,
Half sufferance and half content.
MY TREES
At evening, when the winds are still,
And wide the yellowing landscape glows,
My firwoods on the lonely hill
Are crowned with sun and loud with crows.
Their flocks throng down the open sky
From far salt flats and sedgy seas;
Then dusk and dewfall quench the cry,—
So calm a home is in my trees.
At morning, when the young wind swings
The green slim tops and branches high,
Out puffs a noisy whirl of wings,
Dispersing up the empty sky.
In this dear refuge no roof stops
The skyward pinion winnowing through.
My trees shut out the world;—their tops
Are open to the infinite blue.
THE HAWKBIT
How sweetly on the Autumn scene,
When haws are red amid the green,
The hawkbit shines with face of cheer,
The favourite of the faltering year!
When days grow short and nights grow cold
How fairly gleams its eye of gold,
On pastured field and grassy hill,
Along the roadside and the rill!