10/7/12

autumn poem


 




Mnemosyne  by Trumbull Stickney


It’s autumn in the country I remember.


How warm a wind blew here about the ways!
And shadows on the hillside lay to slumber
During the long sun-sweetened summer-days.


It’s cold abroad the country I remember.


The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain
At midday with a wing aslant and limber;
And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain.


It’s empty down the country I remember.


I had a sister lovely in my sight:
Her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre;
We sang together in the woods at night.


It’s lonely in the country I remember.


The babble of our children fills my ears,
And on our hearth I stare the perished ember
To flames that show all starry thro’ my tears.


It’s dark about the country I remember.


There are the mountains where I lived. The path
Is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber,
The stumps are twisted by the tempests’ wrath.


But that I knew these places are my own,
I’d ask how came such wretchedness to cumber
The earth, and I to people it alone.

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