9.

Beyond the knotty apple-trees That fade about the old brick-barn, Its tattered arms and tattered knees A scare-crow tosses to the breeze Among the shocks of corn.

All things grow gray in earth and sky; The cold wind sounding drearily Makes all the rusty branches fly; The rustling leaves a-rotting lie; The year is waning wearily.

At night I hear the far wild geese Honk in frost-bitten heavens, under Arcturus. Though I seem to cease Outside myself and sleep in peace, I drowse awake and wonder.

I know torn thistles by the creek Hang hairy with the frost; the tented Brown acres of the corn stretch bleak And ghostly in the moonlight, weak In hollows bitter-scented.

Dream back the ways we strolled at morn Through woods of summer ever singing; Moon-trysts beneath the crooked thorn, The tasselled meads of cane and corn Their restless shadows swinging....

I stand and oar our boat among The dripping lilies of the river; I reach her hat the grape-vine long Struck in the stream; we sing a song, That song ... I wake and shiver.

And then my feverish mind reverts To our sad words and sadder parting In days long gone; and, oh! it hurts Within here, for the soul asserts Mine the fool fault from starting.

And I must lie awake and think Of her with such regrets as gladly No unrebuking conscience shrink; And hear the wild-fowls' clangor sink Through plaintive starlight sadly.

When all are overflown and deep The stoic night is left forsaken, For company I well would weep, Since all my spirit fears to sleep, Sleep of such visions shaken.

Grave visions of dead deeds that flaw Our waking hours, ever haunting; Else were we, lacking love and law, Rude scare-crow things of sticks and straw Undaunted and undaunting.