I

Morning

Deep in her broom-sedge, burrs, and ironweeds, Her frost-slain asters and dead mallow-moons, Where gray the wilding clematis balloons The brake with puff-balls: where the slow stream leads Her slower steps; decked with the scarlet beads, Of hip and haw; through dolorous maroons And desolate golds, she goes; the wailing tunes Of all the winds about her like wild reeds. The red wrought-iron hues that flush the green Of blackberry briers, and the bronze that stains The oak’s sere leaves, are in her cheeks: the gray Of forest pools, thin-clocked with ice, is keen In her cold eyes; and in her hair, the rain’s Chill silver shimmers like a moonlight ray.