Ii

Noon

Lost in the sleepy grays and drowsy browns Of woodlands, smoky with the autumn haze, Where dull the last, leafed maples, smouldering, blaze Like ghosts of sachem fires, the month uncrowns Her frosty hair; and where the forest drowns The road in darkness, in the rutted ways, Filled full of freezing rain, her robe she lays Of tattered gold, and seats herself and frowns. And at her frown each wood and bosky hill Shudders with prescience of approaching storm, Her soul’s familiar fiend, who, with wild broom Of wind and rain, works her resistless will, Sweeping the world, and driving with fierce arm The clouds, like leaves, through the tumultuous gloom.