 | The poet, the fool and the faeries |  |
144
DROUTH
Beside the dried-up streams the Summer walksIn ragged gray and tattered green and gold,
Dragging her slattern feet from wood to wold,
O'er every field that white a pathway chalks:
And evermore unto herself she talks,
In insect accents, strident, manifold,
Stinging the heat with weariness untold,
Her scrawny voice dry as the wayside stalks.
Beside the pool, where late she leaned and saw
Her lily bosom bared to lure the bee,
She leans again, beholding but a pod,
A withered disc, near which the crow's harsh caw
Seems but the echo of the mockery
In her own heart, that laughs at Man and God.
| The poet, the fool and the faeries | |