I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes;
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise;
And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
THE GOLDEN-ROD
O Rod of gold!
O swaying sceptre of the year—
Now frost and cold
Show Winter near,
And shivering leaves grow brown and sere.
The bleak hillside,
And marshy waste of yellow reeds,
And meadows wide
Where frosted weeds
Shake on the damp wind light-winged seeds,
Are decked with thee,—
The lingering Summer's latest grace,
And sovereignty.
Each wind-swept space
Waves thy red gold in Winter's face—
He strives each star,
In stormy pride to lay full low;
But when thy bar
Resists his blow,
Will crown thee with a puff of snow!
Margaret Deland
THE PATH THAT LEADS TO NOWHERE
There's a path that leads to nowhere
In a meadow that I know,
Where an inland island rises
And the stream is still and slow;
There it wanders under willows
And beneath the silver green
Of the birches' silent shadows
Where the early violets lean.