Ii

Evening

As eve comes on the teasel stoops Its spike-crowned cone before the blast: The tattered leaves drive whirling past In frantic and fantastic troops.

The matted elder-copses sigh; Their broad, blue combs, with berries weighed, Like heavy pendulums are swayed With every gust that wanders by.

Through broken walls of tangled brier, That hedge the lane, the sumachs thrust Their scarlet torches, red as rust, Lit with the sunset’s stolid fire.

The eve is here: Cold, hard, and drear The cloudless west with livid white Of flaming silver walls the night Far as one star’s thin rays appear.

Wedged ’thwart the west’s white luridness The wild geese wing; from roseless domes The far “honk” of the leader comes Lonely and harsh and colorless.

The west dies down; and in its cup, Shadow on shadow, pours the night; The east glows with a mystic light; The stars are keen; the moon comes up.