 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
71
IN NOVEMBER
No windy white of wind-blown clouds is thine!
No windy white, but low and sodden gray,
That holds the melancholy skies and kills
The wild song and the wild-bird. Yet, ah me!
Thy melancholy skies and mournful woods,
Brown, sighing forests dying that I love!
Thy long, dead leaves, deep, deep about my feet,
Slow, dragging feet that halt or wander on;
Thy deep, sweet, crimson leaves that burn and die
With silent fever of the sickened wood.
No windy white, but low and sodden gray,
That holds the melancholy skies and kills
The wild song and the wild-bird. Yet, ah me!
Thy melancholy skies and mournful woods,
Brown, sighing forests dying that I love!
Thy long, dead leaves, deep, deep about my feet,
Slow, dragging feet that halt or wander on;
Thy deep, sweet, crimson leaves that burn and die
With silent fever of the sickened wood.
I love to hear in all thy wind-swept coignes,
Rain-wet and choked with bleached and ruined weeds,
The withered whisper of the many leaves,
That, fallen on barren ways—like fallen hopes—
Once held so high upon the Summer's heart
Of stalwart trees, now seem the desolate voice
Of Earth lamenting in hushed undertones
Her green departed glory vanished so.
Rain-wet and choked with bleached and ruined weeds,
The withered whisper of the many leaves,
That, fallen on barren ways—like fallen hopes—
Once held so high upon the Summer's heart
Of stalwart trees, now seem the desolate voice
Of Earth lamenting in hushed undertones
Her green departed glory vanished so.
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |