Poems of Madison Cawein Vol. 3 — A November Walk

The hoar frost crisps beneath the feet;

And, sparkling in the morning’s strength, The fence, along its straggling length, Gleams as if wrought of virgin sleet.

On broom-sedge fields and sassafras Neglectfully the dim wind lifts The dead leaves; and around me drifts The milkweed, shaken from the grass.

Reluctantly and one by one The useless leaves drift slowly down;

And, seen through woodland vistas, brown The nut-tree patters in the sun.

Where pools the brook beneath its fall With scales of ice its edge is bound;

And on the pebbles scattered round The ooze is frozen; each a ball, It seems, of crystal fallen there.

And now the wind sweeps through the wood With sighings, and the solitude Seems shaken with a mighty care.

Decay and melancholy drape The near-by hills in mysteries Of mist, through which the rocks and trees Loom, hazy, each a phantom shape.

To sullenness the surly crow All his derisive being yields, And o’er the barren stubble-fields Flaps, cawless, wrapped in hungry woe.

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.

THE WHITE EVENING