AT MICHAELMAS.
About the time of Michael's feast
And all his angels,
There comes a word to man and beast
By dark evangels.
Then hearing what the wild things say
To one another,
Those creatures first born of our gray
Mysterious Mother,
The greatness of the world's unrest
Steals through our pulses;
Our own life takes a meaning guessed
From the torn dulse's.
The draft and set of deep sea-tides
Swirling and flowing,
Bears every filmy flake that rides,
Grandly unknowing.
The sunlight listens; thin and fine
The crickets whistle;
And floating midges fill the shine
Like a seeding thistle.
The hawkbit flies his golden flag
From rocky pasture,
Bidding his legions never lag
Through morning's vasture.
Soon we shall see the red vines ramp
Through forest borders,
And Indian summer breaking camp
To silent orders.
The glossy chestnuts swell and burst
Their prickly houses
Agog at news which reached them first
In sap's carouses.
The long noons turn the ribstons red,
The pippins yellow;
The wild duck from his reedy bed
Summons his fellow.
The robins keep the underbrush
Songless and wary,
As though they feared some frostier hush
Might bid them tarry;
Perhaps in the great North they heard
Of silence falling
Upon the world without a word,
White and appalling.
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