As if some caravan of sound On deserts, in the sky, Had broken rank, Then knit, and pa.s.sed In seamless company.

XXV.

DEATH AND LIFE.

Apparently with no surprise To any happy flower, The frost beheads it at its play In accidental power.

The blond a.s.sa.s.sin pa.s.ses on, The sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another day For an approving G.o.d.

XXVI.

'T WAS later when the summer went Than when the cricket came, And yet we knew that gentle clock Meant nought but going home.

'T was sooner when the cricket went Than when the winter came, Yet that pathetic pendulum Keeps esoteric time.

XXVII.

INDIAN SUMMER.

These are the days when birds come back, A very few, a bird or two, To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on The old, old sophistries of June, -- A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee, Almost thy plausibility Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear, And softly through the altered air Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days, Oh, last communion in the haze, Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake, Thy consecrated bread to break, Taste thine immortal wine!

XXVIII.

AUTUMN.

The morns are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The berry's cheek is plumper, The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf, The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old-fashioned, I'll put a trinket on.

XXIX.

BECLOUDED.

The sky is low, the clouds are mean, A travelling flake of snow Across a barn or through a rut Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day How some one treated him; Nature, like us, is sometimes caught Without her diadem.

x.x.x.

THE HEMLOCK.

I think the hemlock likes to stand Upon a marge of snow; It suits his own austerity, And satisfies an awe

That men must slake in wilderness, Or in the desert cloy, -- An instinct for the h.o.a.r, the bald, Lapland's necessity.

The hemlock's nature thrives on cold; The gnash of northern winds Is sweetest nutriment to him, His best Norwegian wines.

To satin races he is nought; But children on the Don Beneath his tabernacles play, And Dnieper wrestlers run.

x.x.xI.

There's a certain slant of light, On winter afternoons, That oppresses, like the weight Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us; We can find no scar, But internal difference Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything, ' T is the seal, despair, -- An imperial affliction Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens, Shadows hold their breath; When it goes, 't is like the distance On the look of death.