THE line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,The road is forlorn all day,Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,And the hoof-prints vanish away.The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,Expend their bloom in vain.Come over the hills and far with me,And be my love in the rain.The birds have less to say for themselvesIn the wood-world's torn despairThan now these numberless years the elves,Although they are no less there:All song of the woods is crushed like someWild, easily shattered rose.Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,Where the boughs rain when it blows.There is the gale to urge behindAnd bruit our singing down,And the shallow waters aflutter with windFrom which to gather your gown.What matter if we go clear to the west,And come not through dry-shod?For wilding brooch shall wet your breastThe rain-fresh goldenrod.Oh, never this whelming east wind swellsBut it seems like the sea's returnTo the ancient lands where it left the shellsBefore the age of the fern;And it seems like the time when after doubtOur love came back amain.Oh, come forth into the storm and routAnd be my love in the rain.
O HUSHED October morning mild,Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,Should waste them all.The crows above the forest call;To-morrow they may form and go.O hushed October morning mild,Begin the hours of this day slow,Make the day seem to us less brief.Hearts not averse to being beguiled,Beguile us in the way you know;Release one leaf at break of day;At noon release another leaf;One from our trees, one far away;Retard the sun with gentle mist;Enchant the land with amethyst.Slow, slow!For the grapes' sake, if they were all,Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—For the grapes' sake along the wall.
THINE emulous fond flowers are dead, too,And the daft sun-assaulter, heThat frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead:Save only me(Nor is it sad to thee!)Save only meThere is none left to mourn thee in the fields.The gray grass is not dappled with the snow;Its two banks have not shut upon the river;But it is long ago—It seems forever—Since first I saw thee glance,With all the dazzling other ones,In airy dalliance,Precipitate in love,Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.When that was, the soft mistOf my regret hung not on all the land,And I was glad for thee,And glad for me, I wist.Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,With those great careless wings,Nor yet did I.And there were other things:It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:Then fearful he had let thee winToo far beyond him to be gathered in,Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp.Ah! I remember meHow once conspiracy was rifeAgainst my life—The languor of it and the dreaming fond;Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,The breeze three odors brought,And a gem-flower waved in a wand!Then when I was distraughtAnd could not speak,Sidelong, full on my cheek,What should that reckless zephyr flingBut the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!I found that wing broken to-day!For thou are dead, I said,And the strange birds say.I found it with the withered leavesUnder the eaves.
OUT through the fields and the woodsAnd over the walls I have wended;I have climbed the hills of viewAnd looked at the world, and descended;I have come by the highway home,And lo, it is ended.The leaves are all dead on the ground,Save those that the oak is keepingTo ravel them one by oneAnd let them go scraping and creepingOut over the crusted snow,When others are sleeping.And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,No longer blown hither and thither;The last lone aster is gone;The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;The heart is still aching to seek,But the feet question 'Whither?'Ah, when to the heart of manWas it ever less than a treasonTo go with the drift of things,To yield with a grace to reason,And bow and accept and accept the endOf a love or a season?