Charles WebsterThe pine woods on the hill,And the farmhouse miles away,Showed clear as though behind a lensUnder a sky of peacock blue!But a blanket of cloud by afternoonMuffled the earth. And you walked the roadAnd the clover field, where the only soundWas the cricket’s liquid tremolo.Then the sun went down between great driftsOf distant storms. For a rising windSwept clean the sky and blew the flamesOf the unprotected stars;And swayed the russet moon,Hanging between the rim of the hillAnd the twinkling boughs of the apple orchard.You walked the shore in thoughtWhere the throats of the waves were like whip-poor-willsSinging beneath the water and cryingTo the wash of the wind in the cedar trees,Till you stood, too full for tears, by the cot,And looking up saw Jupiter,Tipping the spire of the giant pine,And looking down saw my vacant chair,Rocked by the wind on the lonely porch—Be brave, Beloved!
The pine woods on the hill,And the farmhouse miles away,Showed clear as though behind a lensUnder a sky of peacock blue!But a blanket of cloud by afternoonMuffled the earth. And you walked the roadAnd the clover field, where the only soundWas the cricket’s liquid tremolo.Then the sun went down between great driftsOf distant storms. For a rising windSwept clean the sky and blew the flamesOf the unprotected stars;And swayed the russet moon,Hanging between the rim of the hillAnd the twinkling boughs of the apple orchard.You walked the shore in thoughtWhere the throats of the waves were like whip-poor-willsSinging beneath the water and cryingTo the wash of the wind in the cedar trees,Till you stood, too full for tears, by the cot,And looking up saw Jupiter,Tipping the spire of the giant pine,And looking down saw my vacant chair,Rocked by the wind on the lonely porch—Be brave, Beloved!