And then the sound of marching armies 'woke Amid the branches of the soldier oak, And tempests ceased their warring cry, and dumb The lashing storms that muttered, overcome, Choked by the heralding of battle smoke, When these gnarled branches beat their martial drum. Emily Pauline Johnson...
Read MoreBlack reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His...
April, and the last of the plum blossoms scatters on the black grass before dawn. The sycamore, the lime, the struck pine inhale the first pale hints of sky. An iron day, I think, yet it will come dazzling, the light rise from the belly of leaves and pour burning from the cups of poppies. The...
Read MoreThe well was dry beside the door, And so we went with pail and can Across the fields behind the house To seek the brook if still it ran; Not loth to have excuse to go, Because the autumn eve was fair (Though chill) because the fields were ours, And by the...
Earth travails, Like a woman come to her time. The swaying corn-haulms In the heavy places of the field Cry to be gathered. Apples redden, and drop from their rods. Out of their sheath of prickly leaves The marrows creep, fat and white. The...
Read MoreNot to be conquered by these headlong days, But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood On life’s deep meaning, nature’s altitude Of loveliness, and time’s mysterious ways; At every thought and deed to clear the haze Out of our eyes, considering only this, What man, what life, what...
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