Viii

He walks aimlessly on:

Beyond those knotted apple-trees, That partly hide the old brick barn, Its tattered arms and tattered knees A scarecrow tosses to the breeze Among the shocks of corn.

My heart is gray as is the day, In which the rain-wind drearily Makes all the rusty branches sway, And in the hollows, by each way, The dead leaves rustle wearily.

And soon we ’ll hear the far wild-geese Honk in frost-bitten heavens under Arcturus; when my walks must cease, And by the fireside’s log-heaped peace I ’ll sit and nod and ponder.--

When every fall of this loud creek Is silent with the frost; and tented Brown acres of the corn stretch bleak And shaggy with the snows, that streak The hillsides, hollow-dented;

I ’ll sit and dream of that glad morn We met by banks with elder snowing; That dusk we strolled through flower and thorn, By tasseled meads of cane and corn, To where the stream was flowing.

Again I ’ll oar our boat among The dripping lilies of the river, To reach her hat, the grape-vine long Struck in the stream; we ’ll row to song; And then ... I ’ll wake and shiver.

Why is it that my mind reverts To that sweet past? while full of parting The present is: so full of hurts And heartache, that what it asserts Adds only to the smarting.

How often shall I sit and think Of that sweet past! through lowered lashes What-might-have-been trace link by link; Then watch it gradually sink And crumble into ashes.

Outside I ’ll hear the sad wind weep Like some lone spirit, grieved, forsaken; Then, shuddering, to bed will creep, To lie awake, or, haply, sleep A sleep by visions shaken.

By visions of the past, that draw The present in a hue that’s wanting; A scarecrow thing of sticks and straw,-- Like that just now I, passing, saw,-- Its empty tatters flaunting.