Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Approach of Autumn

Free, let loose to smell the sod
To see the lightning's falling rod
To hear the cataract in foam
To feel the passing gray of gloam.
Free, unshackled in the light
To see the beauty of the night
The curving scimitar of moon
The deep intake of breathing noon.
Free, and thus, in freedom found
The warm brown touch of hallowed ground--
The one small scrap of heaven's earth
Present here in autumn's birth.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The Isle of Avalon


Avalon, you remain
In everything I see
Every spreading autumn sky
Every winging bee
Avalon, dear Avalon,
Isle of my dreams
Arthur claimed that you once reigned
Past the flooding seas---
No, I think not, Avalon
Here your truth is seen
Blue in streams that twinkle on
Through the verdant scene
Dancing with the hooves of goats
Wild in the rills
Flying through the jutting rocks
And the weedy hills.
Avalon, dear Avalon,
Pure and heaven-blest
Each and every golden star
Still recalls your rest
Every daffodil that blows
In the summer breeze
Seems to bend its darling head
Like your shining leaves.
Avalon, dear Avalon,
Stay, and keep me close
Every dream I've ever dreamed
Listens for your notes
Every field of swaying grass
Every cobalt night
Whispers out your harmony
Echoes of your light.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Changed

Careless was I of the tempered wind
Of the light that the autumn seas had sent
Of the tender sod, and the flooding brook
And the growing chick in his hidden nook.
Careless was I of the bending reed
Of the creeping lynx and the cracking seed
Of the fallow deer with his hoof of bronze
And the splintered moon on the wild lawn.
Heedless to see in the splitting skies
With their lightning strikes of the cobalt eyes
And the frightened fall of the shimmering trunk
Through the streamlets dark, and the rivers drunk.
Careless was I---and I felt no peace
From the cry of wolves at the flight of geese
At the change of scent in the summer breeze
Or the flow of ferns on their amber knees.
No, I never knew, nor in knowing, cared
That the feast of snow had arrived prepared
And the season laughed at the cost of cold
From the dripping rain to the crumbling mold.